The judge rebuked the government’s treatment of the institute’s employees.
A federal judge on March 19 decided not to block the Trump administration from firing the leadership of the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP) and replacing them with an official from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
USIP and five of its board members had sued the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory body renamed by President Donald Trump to reduce government waste and spending, alleging that the government illegally fired its 10 acting board members—all of whom were presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate.
The suit also names Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and a host of other government officials, including Vice Admiral Peter A. Garvin, president of the National Defense University.
Hegseth, Rubio, and Garvin are all technically members of USIP’s board but they are “ex-officio” members. This means their board seats were given to them as part of their role in the executive branch of the government.
The institute says it is an independent nonprofit corporation and not actually part of the federal government but was falsely targeted for reduction in Trump’s Feb. 19 executive order, titled Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy. That order called for a downsizing of USIP “to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
While USIP is not part of the federal government, it does receive federal funding.
After the 10 acting board members were fired, the remaining three members replaced the acting director, George Moose, with a new president, Kenneth Jackson, an official from U.S. Agency for International Development.
Its statutes say that the board members can only be removed by the U.S. president “in consultation with the Board, for conviction of a felony, malfeasance in office, persistent neglect of duties, or inability to discharge duties.”
A board member may also be removed by a vote of eight other board members, or with a majority vote from members of the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Education and Labor and the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Labor and Human Resources.
None of these procedures were followed, all plaintiffs stated.
Brian Hudak, attorney for the government, said that Trump reserved the power to remove the board members based on a declaration made by President Ronald Reagan when he created USIP by signing the Defense Authorization Act of 1985.
“I have been advised by the Attorney General that [the statute], relating to the President’s power to remove members of the Board of Directors of the Institute, is neither intended to, nor has the effect of, restricting the President’s constitutional power to remove those officers,” Reagan said at the time.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Alaine Howell said she was unsure how much legal force Reagan’s statement carried.
