Reports indicate that members of the Elon Musk-led DOGE have reportedly broken into the U.S. Institute of Peace despite several protests from employees that it is not part of the executive branch and is instead an independent agency.
George Moose, the CEO of the organization said, “DOGE has broken into our building.” The report from the Associated Press said that members of the Department of Government Efficiency attempted several times to break into the building on Monday.
According to reports, the agency first tried to gain access on Friday but was turned away. It was not immediately clear what the DOGE staffers were looking for or doing in the nonprofit’s building.
According to reports, the agency first tried to gain access on Friday but was turned away. It was not immediately clear what the DOGE staffers were looking for or doing in the nonprofit’s building. (Image: Getty Images)
The building, which is located across the street from the State Department building in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, has reportedly been a target of DOGE for weeks. Many of the organization’s lawyers have argued that the institute’s status protected it from the kind of reorganization that is occurring in other federal agencies.
The website states that the institution is a nonpartisan, independent organization “dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad.” It was reportedly created by Congress in 1984 as an “independent nonprofit corporation.”
It was also stated that the institute does not meet U.S. Code definitions of “government corporation,” “government-controlled corporation” or “independent establishment.” DOGE’s forceful entry comes after the team fired hundreds of government weather forecasts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday.
The building, which is located across the street from the State Department building in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, has reportedly been a target of DOGE for weeks. (Image: Getty Images)
Experts branded the move a threat to “public safety” and “absolutely insane” following the mass layoffs as the agency includes vital forecasters at the National Weather Service (NWS), which regularly predicts the path of life-threatening events like hurricanes, tornadoes, and storms.
The federal workers were on probationary status and were critical for local forecasts across the country, according to the Associated Press. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated on social media that the layoffs were “spectacularly short-sighted”.
Swain told the outlet that the layoffs will “deal a major self-inflicted wound to the public safety of Americans and the resiliency of the American economy to weather and climate-related disasters.”
DOGE’s forceful entry comes after the team fired hundreds of government weather forecasts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday. (Image: Getty Images)
Ethan Clark, another meteorologist who works for the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, claimed residents would “die” due to the cuts. ” “NWS has fired meteorologists as a direct result of upper-level heads telling them to do so. Let me be clear, people will die because of this. Absolutely insane,” he wrote on X. “I have no words for it. I’ve spent all day I mean all day in meetings with both Republicans and Democrats fighting.”
The overall tally came to around 10% of NOAA’s workforce. NOAA chief scientist Craig McLean mentioned that the initial layoffs targeted those on probation, comprising about 375 probationary employees within the NWS, which handles day-to-day forecasting and hazard warnings.
These mass of unexpected firings seem to align with billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to downsize what President Donald Trump has described as an inefficient, oversized federal workforce.
