USIP lawyers warn Trump administration’s 10-year deal breaks court orders

Lawyers for former U.S. Institute of Peace staff say the organization’s acting president has signed a 10-year deal with the State Department — a move they argue would violate a judge’s order limiting changes to the embattled institution. That agreement, the lawyers warn, would relocate hundreds of State Department staff into the USIP building, which is expected to house President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace in the coming months. The USIP building is a gleaming, Washington-based landmark located just north of the city’s Lincoln Memorial, and one that’s been under the subject of litigation for nearly a year. Last February, Trump issued an executive order that labeled USIP, a congressionally funded body focused on peacebuilding, “unnecessary” and ordered its staff and programs to be scaled back to its statutory minimum. The administration seized the building, fired nearly all its staff, and installed political appointees at its head, leading to a legal back-and-forth that’s still in motion today. Ousted staff and leadership at the organization sued the Trump administration in March, and by September, the appeals court had ordered that the case be put on pause until the Supreme Court decides on another case that could potentially influence the outcome. The USIP lawsuit has been stayed ever since. Despite the pending lawsuit, the Trump administration has taken over the USIP building — a move that the former staff argue is illegal. The government renamed USIP the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in early December, and then used its headquarters as the site of a peace deal signing between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last week, the administration also used a photograph of the USIP building during a presentation on the Board of Peace, a new body established by the government to rebuild Gaza, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That photo — which was presented to political heads from across the globe — made it seem like the USIP building would soon house the staff of the Board of Peace, the details of which are still being ironed out. “In light of these facts and others, appellees are concerned that appellants may be using the stay, including exploiting the time added to the case schedule by the Court’s abeyance order, to act in in ways that will fundamentally alter the purpose and mission of the Institute,” wrote Andrew Goldfarb, an attorney representing former USIP staff, in a letter to the Department of Justice, which is defending the Trump administration in the USIP case, on Jan. 23. In the letter, Goldfarb also states that “construction is already underway” inside the USIP building, modifying working spaces and meeting rooms within the $500 million facility. He warned that all of those changes violate an order made by the district court — and the stay handed down by the appeals court — last year. “A Federal judge ordered them out of the building and told them to leave USIP alone. That ruling is stayed while the government appeals, but a stay is not permission for the loser of a case to hijack the property of the winning party,” said George Foote, the counsel for former USIP leadership and staff, in a statement to Devex. “The government does not have a license to rename the USIP headquarters building or lease it out for ten years. It certainly has no right to open the building to a new international organization like the proposed Board of Peace." Neither the State Department nor the USIP responded to a request for comment, and the USIP website has been stripped of everything aside from a video of Trump signing a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda at USIP headquarters.