Most employees of the U.S. Institute of Peace were purged Friday via emailed pink slips, two weeks after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency removed leaders of the congressionally funded, nonprofit think tank.
The pink slips were sent to staffers’ personal emails and in WhatsApp messages, since they had lost access to work accounts after the March 17 standoff that ended with the forcible removal of President and CEO George Moose, who had refused to let agents from DOGE into the building.
It was another nail in the coffin of so-called soft diplomacy the U.S. had been using to promote democracy around the world for decades. USIP was created in 1984 by an act of Congress as the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union loomed, working to prevent and resolve conflicts, end wars and promote good governance. The organization would routinely brief decision-makers at both the Pentagon and the executive branch on foreign policy and national security issues, NPR noted.
USIP is a private nonprofit organization, not a government agency, so those who were fired are not federal employees, NPR reported. The organization’s $80 million endowment includes its Washington offices, which are not government property because the building was constructed with private donations.
USIP board members challenged the shutdown in court, alleging it was unconstitutional, but a judge ruled DOGE’s tactics, while “offensive,” were not illegal.
Other blows to U.S. foreign aid include the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the shuttering of Voice of America in a push the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace described as the “cessation of essentially all funding for democracy aid.”
With News Wire Services
