Fired U.S. Institute of Peace board members filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming they were unlawfully terminated and that the government unlawfully intervened in the organization.
The USIP was established by congressional action in 1984 and has a board made up of members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, alongside the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and president of the National Defense University. Last week, President Donald Trump fired most of the board, leaving the latter three in place, who then voted to remove the agency’s president and install a new acting president.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, five of the ousted board members are seeking “the immediate intervention of this Court to stop Defendants from completing the unlawful dismantling of the Institute and irreparably impairing Plaintiffs’ ability to perform their vital peace promotion and conflict resolution work as tasked by Congress.”
The plaintiffs are pursuing a declaration that their firings were not legal or valid, as well as the reinstatement of ousted USIP President George Moose.
The lawsuit was filed a day after acting USIP President Kenneth Jackson and Department of Government Efficiency members were “escorted” into the building with assistance from Metropolitan Police Department officers after they had been denied entry.
MPD CALLED IN TO DEESCALATE USIP DISPUTE AFTER FORMER PRESIDENT ACCUSED DOGE OF BREAKING IN
In the court filing Tuesday, the fired USIP board members accused DOGE workers of trespassing and taking over the USIP’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and “plunder[ing] the offices in an effort to access and gain control of the Institute’s infrastructure, including sensitive computer systems.”
The case has been assigned to Judge Beryl Howell, who previously ruled against the Trump administration in cases regarding an executive order canceling government contracts with a top Democratic-linked law firm and the firing of a member of the National Labor Relations Board. Howell was appointed to the federal court by former President Barack Obama.