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A federal judge was alarmed by allegations that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency provoked a dramatic standoff this week with the U.S. Institute of Peace, culminating in what attorneys for the agency called a hostile “takeover” fueled by threats and harassment.
Federal prosecutors have threatened institute officials with criminal prosecution, DOGE members warned that a private security contractor would lose government contracts, and the institute’s president was forcibly removed by several law enforcement agencies – events that attorneys with the Department of Justice have not disputed.
In a hearing in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, District Judge Beryl Howell asked Justice Department attorneys whether Donald Trump’s administration could enforce his executive order seeking to shutter the agency “without using the force of guns and threats by DOGE against American citizens.”
“I mean, this conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigations, using arms of law enforcement … probably terrorizing employees and staff at the institute, when there are so many other lawful ways to accomplish the goals … why?” she said. “Just because DOGE is in a rush?”
The institute is not a federal agency but an independent nonprofit established by Congress under President Ronald Reagan. Its headquarters in Washington, D.C., is not government property, and its personnel are not federal employees. The institute employs roughly 600 people in the United States and overseas with a congressional mandate to help resolve international conflicts.
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On Monday, DOGE agents emptied the building and installed DOGE agent Kenneth Jackson as acting president. Jackson has been tapped to join the boards of several agencies gutted by DOGE, and he was recently nominated by Trump as a senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which DOGE chief Elon Musk has threatened to throw “into the wood chipper.”
A lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from shutting down the agency describes a “takeover by force” that followed a dramatic series of events following the president’s executive order signaling the institute’s “expected termination.”
The lawsuit — brought by the institute and members of its board against Trump, DOGE and administration officials — argues that the Trump administration unlawfully fired the institute’s president George Moose after forcing out board members and replacing them with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among others.
Howell, however, denied a request for a temporary restraining order that would block DOGE from taking over the institute while a legal challenge plays out, noting that it’s a “complicated entity” with an unusual structure. But she said she is “offended” by DOGE’s conduct.
On Sunday, institute board members agreed to lock the office and suspend the building’s private security contract with Inter-Con after DOGE agents showed up last week. FBI agent Doug Silk then told the institute’s security chief Colin O’Brien that he was the subject of a Justice Department investigation, according to O’Brien’s sworn statement in court documents.
O’Brien said he told his wife to lock the doors of their home, fearing FBI agents would show up to question him.
On Monday, Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department said they were contacted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office — now under the direction of longtime Trump ally Ed Martin — and sided with Jackson, who is described in a police statement as the institute’s president, not Moose.
DOGE agents then allegedly pressured Inter-Con vice president Derrick Hanna to hand over his spare keys to get into the building by threatening to revoke the company’s government contracts.
O’Brien said that when police arrived at the building around 5:30 p.m. Monday, officers were joined by Jackson and DOGE agents.
“I was told by D.C. police officers to stay put and not move. I was physically blocked by a D.C. police officer from moving about the building,” O’Brien wrote in his statement. “I asked if I could retrieve my car keys and my car, and they said no.”
He said police then witnessed D.C. police “retrieve lock picking equipment” from a car.
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During Wednesday’s hearing, a deflated Judge Howell said she was “offended on behalf of American citizens” that the institute’s staff could be “treated so abominably.”
“And to strong-arm a private contractor? To threaten … people with criminal investigations?” she asked Brian Hudak, chief of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. “That doesn’t strike you as a little offensive?”
The White House has defended DOGE’s actions and the removal of the institute’s president and board.
“President Trump signed an executive order to reduce [the institute] to its statutory minimum,” deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement. “Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the President’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”
DOGE — under the U.S. DOGE Service — has led a crusade across the federal government to fire tens of thousands of workers and slash billions of dollars in spending, which faces an avalanche of lawsuits questioning Musk’s authority and the president’s alleged constitutional abuses.
On Tuesday, in a court ruling that appears to be the first to restrain Musk himself for his actions in the Trump administration, a federal judge ordered the billionaire and DOGE to reinstate access to email and payment systems for all USAID employees and contractors.
That order also blocks the administration from taking any other actions to try to shutter the agency, including firing workers or placing them on leave, deleting websites, shutting bureaus and closing buildings.
