DOGE took over the US Institute of Peace. Now, the inside looks like a zombie movie, security chief reveals
In March, operatives with DOGE, erratic billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, seized control of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), a congressionally funded and quasi-governmental – but fully independent – nonprofit organization, following a dramatic standoff with staffers.
As the DOGE team forced their way into the institute's gleaming Moshe Safdie-designed concrete-and-glass headquarters at the northwest corner of the National Mall, local police and FBI agents ejected everyone from the building, including institute president George Moose, a career diplomat who served for 30-plus years under Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
The institute was established in 1984 by Republican president Ronald Reagan with a stated mission to advance international stability and promote global conflict resolution. Still, less than a month into Donald Trump's latest term as president, he issued an executive order taking aim at USIP as 'unnecessary.'
DOGE then swiftly fired USIP's workforce and replaced its board with MAGA loyalists, after which the purported cost-cutting agency locked the doors to $500 million structure and essentially walked away – attracting rats and roaches and letting conditions erode to such a point that the facility will now likely require hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs, according to USIP chief of security Colin O'Brien.
O'Brien, along with a contract engineer, was the first to thoroughly inspect the institute's building last month after a federal judge declared DOGE's takeover illegal, ruling its actions as 'null and void.'
O'Brien, a U.S. Army veteran who then worked in law enforcement before joining USIP in August 2023, said what he found was, in a word, 'offensive.' The offices that were abandoned for two months looked like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie, frozen in time, with everything left exactly as it was when the house was cleaned out, according to O'Brien.
And this, he said, was precisely the problem.
'Anyone who manages large commercial buildings understands that maintenance is not something you can just stop doing for two months,' O'Brien told The Independent. 'After DOGE took over, they canceled a lot of contracts and critical functions stopped happening.'
Rodents became a problem because DOGE employees neglected to clear out any of the food left on the premises after taking over, O'Brien explained. USIP had a cafe managed by a contractor, with food being stored onsite, he said. Additionally, O'Brien said, USIP personnel had food in refrigerators throughout the building, along with snack items they didn't have a chance to remove from desks and cabinets before DOGE summarily booted them from the property.
Over the next eight weeks, DOGE wouldn't let any USIP staff in the building, and didn't do anything to prevent the moldering food from spoiling further, which quickly attracted vermin.
Roaches were also attracted to the abandoned perishables throughout the space, entering through wastewater and drainage pipes that had dried up from lack of use, O'Brien said.
'There were several water leaks, as well, that contributed to their ability to come into the building,' he added.
Beyond the various infestations, O'Brien recalled that, among other things, ceiling tiles were mysteriously missing throughout the building, water damage was rampant, vehicle barriers had become non-operational, and weeds were growing in the cooling tower on the roof – a potential vector for Legionnaires' disease. Since the location was left without adequate security, graffiti also appeared on an exterior wall.
'These things can turn into major, $100,000-plus repairs for lack of maintenance,' O'Brien said. 'Now we're in a rush to play catchup.'
However, according to O'Brien, the issues 'went beyond maintenance.'
'They ripped the main logo off the wall when you come into the lobby, and while we have most of the parts back, would you be surprised that we're still missing four letters: U, S, I, and P?' O'Brien said. 'That's not coincidental.'
More than a dozen USIP flags were also removed from their flagpoles and remain unaccounted for, which O'Brien believes were taken, along with the USIP logo remnants, as 'war trophies.'
He called the situation 'uncharted,' and struggles to accurately put into words the mix of emotions he felt upon walking back into the USIP building.
'The closest thing you can compare this to is McCarthyism, and even that pales in comparison to the total destruction that is occurring right now,' O'Brien said.
O'Brien's colleagues at USIP are 'the most incredible group of people, who care about making the world better,' oftentimes at the expense of their own health and personal safety, he continued. While the current administration claims to see USIP's programs as expendable, the institute in fact grew during Trump's first turn in office from 2016 to 2020.
To O'Brien, the disconnect is massive.
'[Trump] gets sworn in on January 20, and in his inauguration speech, he said, 'I'm a peacemaker,'' O'Brien said. 'USIP is the only publicly-funded private institution that is dedicated to peace in the developed world. We are unique, with a 40-year legacy of trying to do the right thing and make this world just a little bit better.'
Regardless of political affiliation, the men and women at USIP are still prepared to cooperate with the Trump administration however necessary 'in order to leave the world a little bit better than we found it,' according to O'Brien.
'It's not that we're against the administration, or against Trump,' he said. 'It's that we're ready to do this work with whomever.'
On May 19, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the DOGE seizure of USIP had been unlawful, and ordered Moose and his staff reinstated. In handing down her opinion, Howell said Trump's 'efforts here to take over an organization… represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better.'
As USIP once again assumes control of its building, Musk left DOGE as his 130-day tenure as a 'special government employee' comes to an end. The hastily formed agency managed only a fraction of its promised spending reductions, while crippling a raft of vital government programs and reportedly leading Trump to ask, 'Was it all bulls**t?'
The 80-year-old Moose now has a daunting task in reconstituting and relaunching USIP, according to O'Brien, who insisted he 'would take a bullet' for his boss 'without hesitation.'
'He is that kind of person, a wonderful man, great leader, and something to live up to,' O'Brien said. 'Ride or die, I'm standing next to him.'
DOGE officials did not respond to requests for comment.
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