DOJ considering charges over fight launched by Trump-resisting ‘peace’ institute
A fight launched by the U.S. Institute for Peace in response to President Donald Trump’s orders that the organization limit its activities to what the law required has been escalated to the point that the Department of Justice is “exploring” possible criminal charges against its former officials.
They had orchestrated a resistance to Trump’s orders, to the point they barricaded their building, destroyed door locks, damaged communications systems and more.
It is the Daily Caller News Foundation that reported an official, granted anonymity, said the DOJ is looking at USIP actions, including the removal and destruction of door locks, and whether they might have created illegal fire hazards.
“The official also flagged the widespread distribution of internal flyers instructing USIP staff not to cooperate with incoming Trump administration officials as potentially obstructive conduct,” the report said.
There had been a changeover on its board over the issue of obeying the president’s orders, the report noted.
“Eleven board members were lawfully removed, and remaining board members appointed Kenneth Jackson acting president,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “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.”
The source, from the DOJ, said the investigation is in its early stages.
The fight against Trump’s executive orders blew up just last week when a standoff between former USIP officials who had been removed, and Trump’s administration, developed.
The officials were removed once it was determined they declined to comply with a Feb. 19 executive order “requiring federal funded organizations like USIP to scale operations down to their bare statutory minimums.”
Other reports have revealed that officials at the “peace” agency were readying for a confrontation with Trump long before the executive order was released.
A document from Feb. 6, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, noted officials schemed to deny access to the building for anyone USIP officials disliked.
“Flyers with the names and photos of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials were posted throughout the building, instructing staff to report their presence and avoid conversation,” the report said.
When officials with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency first arrived, they were refused entry.
Communications inside the building also were disabled and eventually, police summoned by the federal government found a now former USIP president and others barricaded on the building’s fifth floor.
The institute, which was created to pursue “diplomatic solutions” to global conflicts, now is in court.
The New York Times said staffers removed from the organization are challenging President Trump’s authority to issue orders to such organizations.
The White House explains the institute is part of the executive branch and under the president’s authority.
Leftist judges have aligned themselves with Trump opponents over and over during the early days of his second presidency, but in this case the court said Trump could do as he has demanded, allowing Trump’s Department of Government Efficience to take over USIP.
The Times said, “Brian P. Hudak, a lawyer from the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, said that it was misleading to call last Monday’s events an ‘assault’ as the institute did in its initial lawsuit and that calling the police was reasonable after the institute’s staff locked themselves inside the building. ‘When a government official is denied access to a work space where they are compelled to go and do work as a matter of law, and someone is standing in their way saying, I’m not letting you do that?’ Mr. Hudak said. ‘I think that’s a big problem.’”
Previously reported was that a federal judge allowed DOGE to take over control of USIP. Former USIP board members sued, claiming the White House didn’t have the authority to make executive branch decisions.
USIP, established by Congress in 1984, had said mission is to “prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad,” despite the U.S. having been involved in numerous military interventions, prolonged wars and rising global instability in the decades since.
He has sought more than $55 million for its operations first fiscal year 2025.
Andrew Goldfarb, a lawyer for those opposing DOGE work at USIP, said, “We were looking for any mechanism that would, so to speak, stop the trains here. Anything to stop the destruction that is going on,” according to the Hill.