The $500 million headquarters building of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) may transfer to the General Services Administration (GSA) at no charge, according to court documents. Magazine WIRED reported on details of the recently filed lawsuit related to the independent think tank that has been the center of a hotly contested battle between the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and former staffers.
US district judge Beryl Howell effectively allowed the transfer of the headquarters building in a decision Tuesday, according to WIRED. The building is in a prime D.C. location near the Potomac River and the National Mall.
Tensions at USIP have been building since the Trump administration fired the agency’s 10 voting board members in March. USIP staffers then denied DOGE representatives access to the building until they could gain entrance using a physical key from a former security contractor, said WIRED. Kenneth Jackson, a State Department official, assumed the role of acting president of USIP, and most staffers have now been terminated.
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This prompted former employees to sue Jackson, DOGE, President Donald Trump, and other administration members, seeking intervention to halt the institute's dismantling, the report said. Documents filed by the defendants indicate that a former GSA official, Nate Cavanaugh, has now replaced Jackson at USIP and has been instructed to transfer USIP’s real estate assets to GSA.
A letter from Cavanaugh to GSA acting administrator Stephen Ehikian included in the batch of court documents said, “I have concluded that it is in the best interest of USIP, the federal government, and the United States for USIP to transfer its real property located at 2301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, D.C. 20037, to GSA and to seek an exception from the 100 percent reimbursement requirement for the building.” A separate letter from office of management and budget director Russell Vought to Ehikian approved the request for a no-cost building transfer.
“The effort to transfer the building to GSA is part of the DOGE playbook to run agencies through a wood chipper. That’s what they’re trying to do,” claims George Foote, longtime outside general counsel to USIP, in the WIRED article. “They’re trying to kill the agency, which they have no right to do.”
Lawyers for the former USIP staff have filed to prevent the transfer of assets, while government lawyers say the institute is an executive agency for which the government has the statutory authority to transfer excess property to GSA under President Trump’s February executive order aimed at reining in independent agencies.
USIP is a nonpartisan organization funded by Congress and established in 1984 to promote conflict resolution and global peacebuilding.
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Kristen Smithberg
Kristen Smithberg is a Colorado-based freelance writer who covers commercial real estate, insurance, benefits and retirement topics for BenefitsPRO and other industry publications.
