The White House and the remnants of Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative ordered the shutdown of the U.S. Institute of Peace over the weekend via email telling staff they are fired, this time with the backing of a federal court.
CNN and WUSA9 reported the firings Saturday, when emails were sent out to between 200 to 300 people at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. — nearly the entire staff in the building. A handful remained to close out the institute’s operations, per the reports.
The shuttering of the D.C. office marks the apparent end of a federally-funded nonprofit whose mission involved work in key conflict zones around the world, including South Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s also the second time the Trump administration has attempted to axe the agency, the first effort having been launched in March.
That initial DOGE-ing of the institute was blocked by a federal judge, but the order was reversed in late June by an appeals court. A second order of mass firings was expected after that ruling was stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit, and like the first round was issued in a late Friday evening email to all staff.
Reports after the first attempt at mass firings indicated that the office was left unmonitored as employees were left in limbo, with vermin including mice and roaches attracted to the unkept headquarters and the sudden halting of cleaning services.
"These actions reflect a cruel indifference toward USIP's dedicated workforce," former agency spokeswoman Liz Callihan told WUSA9 in a statement. "Beyond the harm to these committed professionals, such reckless actions will immediately end the important training, education, facilitation and research work that USIP does around the world."
She added to CNN: “We joked about it, but ‘Friday night massacre 1.0,’ and last night was ‘Friday massacre 2.0.’ So the intention is very much mental torture and emotional anguish, whether that’s inflicted on the partners and individuals in these conflict environments that so desperately need our help and support, but also the staff.”
Callihan further condemned the shutdown of the institute as an example of constitutional overreach. The U.S.Institute of Peace, founded in 1984, is a nonprofit authorized and funded by Congress — not the Executive Branch. A law establishing the agency was signed by President Ronald Reagan.
But the Executive Branch under Donald Trump’s second administration has tested its constitutional authority to scale back or in some cases wholly dismantle agencies that owe their existence to congressionally-passed legislation. Aiding the president’s team is Congress itself, which under GOP control has given DOGE’s federal cuts its blessing, even given the scale of those cuts and the precedent it could set regarding the use of presidential power.
Trump and the former head of his DOGE initiative, Elon Musk, underwent a very public breakup in June. The two viciously attacked each other over social media, with Musk even tweeting and deleting an accusation claiming that the president was “in the Epstein files.” The cause of their falling out was allegedly the deficit spending contained in the Republicans’ budget reconciliation package.
Though Musk left the administration, the efforts of the White House and the remnants of DOGE to tear apart the government have continued.
“Having regained control of USIP, DOGE is renewing its mistreatment of USIP employees and its systematic dismantling of an institution authorized by Congress to promote peacebuilding efforts around the world,” Callihan told CNN.
The institute is far from the only agency to suffer this fate. The Trump administration has sought to shutter the entire Department of Education as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog for unfair economic practices affecting U.S. consumers.
Those orders were met with mixed levels of success, as the plans to scale back or shutter FEMA has been met with political controversy and courts have so far blocked the order to shut down the Education Department — which, unlike the Institute of Peace, is a Cabinet-level agency.
One employee told the Washington Post in March that shuttering the agency would have a real immediate effect in conflict zones.
“We put mediators in place to help stitch these communities back together,” they said. “So it does have a dramatic effect on violence on the ground immediately by just pulling these assets out.”
