Washington
CNN
—
Personnel from the Department of Government Efficiency, accompanied by DC police officers, gained access to the US Institute of Peace Monday after being turned away last week.
The dramatic escalation follows the Trump administration’s Friday gutting of the organization’s board and tees up another court fight between the administration and an independent organization.
“DOGE has broken into our building,” acting USIP president George Moose, whom the Trump administration said has been fired from the role, said in a statement Monday.
The administration fired most of USIP’s board on Friday and its three remaining members – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin – said they were installing Kenneth Jackson as acting USIP president. Jackson was among the personnel who entered the building on Monday, according to the institute’s chief security officer.
USIP does not see that appointment as legal. The institute, which works to resolve conflict, is not a federal agency. It was created by Congress as a nonpartisan, independent body in 1984, and USIP owns and manages its headquarters.
According to USIP’s chief security officer Colin O’Brien, the organization on Monday called the DC Metropolitan Police after former security contractors, whose contracts were suspended Sunday, entered the building without permission.
When he went to greet the police, O’Brien recounted, “they held the door open and allowed members of DOGE to enter the building, where they were also followed by 10 to 12 police officers, uniformed DC police officers.”
Those DOGE personnel, most of whom O’Brien said would not identify themselves, told him, USIP’s general counsel and members of the operations staff to exit the building, he said.
More police officers arrived later in the day with lock-picking devices and were seen entering a side door of the building.
In a post on X, DOGE alleged that Moose “denied lawful access to Kenneth Jackson, the Acting USIP President (as approved by the USIP Board).” DOGE said DC police “arrived onsite and escorted Mr. Jackson into the building.”
“The only unlawful individual was Mr. Moose, who refused to comply, and even tried to fire USIP’s private security team when said security team went to give access to Mr. Jackson,” DOGE said in the post, which linked to a memo from the three Trump officials appointing Jackson as acting president.
A DC police spokesperson told CNN that the police department responded to an unlawful entry report at USIP. “Individuals who were asked to leave by the management at that facility left,” they said. “There were no arrests made and no incidents to report.”
Some USIP officials remained in the building after DOGE’s arrival, including Moose, a retired career diplomat. He was later forced to exit the building by DC police.
In an interview done by phone from his locked office as DOGE went through the building, Moose said he had expected DOGE would return to try to gain access to USIP.
Over the weekend, he said, “representatives of the FBI and of the US Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia were approaching members of our staff and our workforce to try to intimidate their way into getting into the building.”
“We had not expected that the FBI would succeed in enlisting the support and collaboration of the District of Columbia police, with whom we have had a great relationship,” Moose said. “Somehow, FBI has managed to convince the DC police that this is a building that is owned by the US government and not by the US Institute of Peace.”
O’Brien told CNN that the FBI called him over the weekend, and two FBI agents went to the home of one of his security officers.
The FBI referred a request for comment to the DOJ. CNN has reached out to the Department of Justice.
Moose said that USIP plans to fight the DOGE moves “vigorously” in court.
“We are confident of our legal status, and we are confident that a court that gives us a hearing will be persuaded by the strength of our legal argument,” Moose said after departing the building.
“It’s not the first building I’ve been called upon to try to defend. We’ve had to defend embassies all around the world, in Africa, where I spent most of my career in pursuit of our mission,” he said. “This is obviously, this is not a great day for this. This is not a happy day for anybody that somehow, this misunderstanding of our intent, our purpose has reached a point where folks are going to come and try it.”
Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, who arrived on the scene later in the evening Monday, said he’ll “report back to House leadership” and “we’ll try to do something in the US Congress.”
“USIP is a congressionally chartered nonprofit. It is not a federal agency. We think it’s clearly illegal and unconstitutional for DOGE to be taking it over,” he told CNN.
O’Brien, the chief security officer, said he had never experienced anything like Monday’s events in his tenure at USIP.
“It’s disappointing,” he told CNN. “When you look at the mission of the United States Institute of Peace, its job is to prevent Americans from getting into costly wars. It’s to bring peace, and our president has said he wants to be a peacemaker, and we are ready, willing and able to assist with that mission.”
