March 19 (UPI) — The U.S. Institute of Peace filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump administration after being taken over and taken apart by the Trump administration.
The complaint states that USIP is an “independent nonprofit corporation established by Congress” in the 1984 United States Institute of Peace Act, and that “Congress confirmed the Institute’s status as ‘an independent nonprofit corporation’ outside of the Executive branch throughout the USIP Act.”
However, it was named in an executive order written by President Donald Trump in February that lists USIP among a group of “governmental entities,” that will be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
In the filing, USIP named Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, among the defendants.
USIP stated in its complaint that Trump “incorrectly labeled the Institute a ‘governmental entity’ that that was part of the “federal bureaucracy.”
As a result of this purported misidentification, USIP has been subject to what it describes as “unlawful dismantling,” which includes the “firing of all of the Institute’s Board members who were presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate,” and then the termination of its president George Moose directly by Rubio, Hegseth and President of the National Defense University Vice Admiral Peter A. Garvin.
The filing declares Rubio, Hegseth and Garvin to be “ex officio board members” who then installed Kenneth Jackson, who said in the suit is the “acting president of the United States Institute of Peace,” but in a “purported capacity.”
The suit then states that DOGE arrived Monday at USIP in “attacks” that “culminated in the literal trespass and takeover by force” by DOGE, who then entered the organization’s headquarters and “plundered” its offices “in an effort to access and gain control of the Institute’s infrastructure, including sensitive computer systems.”
USIP accused the defendants of violating the U.S. Institute of Peace Act, and that their actions against USIP “exceed executive authority, usurp legislative authority conferred upon Congress by the Constitution, and violate the separation of powers.”
USIP also asks in the filing that the board members, including Moose be legally restored, and establish that “Kenneth Jackson has not been lawfully appointed to any position within the Institute.”
Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is scheduled to hear the case Wednesday afternoon.
