Sept. 18 (UPI) — Former members of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace filed an emergency petition to prevent President Donald Trump from having his name carved into the building Friday.
The ousted board members want to block the move, and said in their motion that they asked Kenneth Jackson, the Department of Government Efficiency official serving as acting president of the USIP, to ensure the carving would not happen.
The USIP is a non-profit created by Congress, and DOGE and Trump ousted the board soon after he took office. Trump put his name on the building in letters bolted to the outside of the building on Constitution Avenue in December. The name of the agency, “United States Institute of Peace” is carved into the facade.
“The building — which was largely funded by private donations to USIP as a tax exempt nonprofit corporation — is a work of expressive architecture designed to be ‘symbolic of USIP’s’ independent ‘mission,'” the emergency motion said. “Alteration of the design to impose a different message would cause irreparable harm.”
Lawyers for the board members said they “understand that a formal request for the work has been made and a contractor has been selected,” CNN reported.
USIP was created by Congress under former President Ronald Reagan to conduct research and training to promote democracy around the world. Trump added his name in December, then had a signing ceremony with the presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The institute has been battling with Trump in the courts trying to get its former president, George Moose, reinstated. Before he put his name on it, Trump tried to completely dismantle the non-profit, but the courts wouldn’t allow it.
“Notwithstanding the importance that the President and his supporters place on attaching his name to notable buildings,” the motion said, “appellants will suffer no harm or prejudice whatsoever if they are precluded from carving the President’s name into the USIP building unless and until this litigation concludes in their favor.”
On Thursday, a judge ordered that the Trump administration must submit any plans to change the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in writing 30 days in advance of the work. On Tuesday, the judge told him for a second time that he could not put his name on the Kennedy Center.
Source: U.S. News
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