Michael Lewis Documents DOGE's Takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace

The Hostile Takeover of a Quiet Institution

The United States Institute of Peace, a federally funded but legally independent organization created by Congress in 1984 to promote conflict resolution and diplomacy abroad, became one of the more dramatic early targets of the Department of Government Efficiency's aggressive campaign to dismantle federal infrastructure. Unlike cabinet agencies, USIP occupies a peculiar legal gray zone — it is not a traditional executive branch agency, receives a congressional appropriation, and operates with a presidentially appointed but largely autonomous board. That ambiguity made it both a symbolic and logistical target for DOGE operatives seeking to demonstrate the scope of their authority.

In early 2025, a team of DOGE-affiliated operatives, working in coordination with figures tied to Elon Musk's cost-cutting initiative, moved to seize operational control of the institute. The effort involved physically entering the USIP headquarters in Washington, D.C., and attempting to assert administrative control over its staff, systems, and assets. The confrontation was not merely bureaucratic — it involved security personnel, locked doors, and a standoff that drew attention from legal observers and former diplomats alike who questioned the constitutional and statutory basis for the action.

Colin O'Brien and the Operatives on the Ground

Central to the DOGE operation at USIP was Colin O'Brien, a relatively obscure figure who emerged as one of the key ground-level operatives executing the takeover. O'Brien, like many DOGE-affiliated personnel deployed across federal agencies in early 2025, was young, had a background tied to the broader Musk orbit, and was tasked with gaining access to sensitive organizational data — personnel files, financial records, and internal communications. His presence at USIP was part of a broader pattern in which DOGE sent representatives into agencies ahead of any formal legal authorization, betting that institutional resistance would collapse under pressure.

The USIP leadership initially refused to comply. The institute's then-president and board members argued that DOGE had no legal authority over an organization that was not, strictly speaking, an executive agency. They pointed to the institute's founding legislation, which gave its board significant independence and did not place it under direct presidential operational control. That resistance triggered an escalation — including attempts to remove board members and install more compliant leadership — that played out over several weeks in a manner that alarmed foreign policy professionals who viewed USIP's work in conflict zones as genuinely valuable.

Michael Lewis and the Narrative Frame

Author Michael Lewis, best known for translating complex systemic stories into accessible narratives — from Wall Street dysfunction in Liar's Poker to the 2008 financial crisis in The Big Short — embedded himself in this episode as it unfolded, gaining unusual access to USIP staff and leadership during the crisis. Lewis has long been interested in the hidden machinery of the federal government, a preoccupation that drove his 2018 book The Fifth Risk, which examined what happens when incoming administrations fail to understand or properly staff the agencies they inherit.

His reporting on the USIP situation follows a similar thematic thread: the idea that American governance depends on layers of institutional knowledge and quiet expertise that are invisible to most citizens until they are suddenly gone. The institute, despite its low public profile, has played roles in post-conflict reconstruction in places like Afghanistan, Colombia, and various African nations. Lewis frames the DOGE intervention not simply as a budget dispute but as a case study in how the second Trump administration's efficiency drive risks dismantling functional, cost-effective institutions alongside genuinely wasteful ones — with little ability to distinguish between the two.

Legal Battles and Institutional Fallout

The legal fight over USIP became one of several flashpoints in a broader constitutional debate about the limits of executive power in the DOGE era. Courts were asked to weigh in on whether the president could effectively dissolve or commandeer an institution created by Congress with explicit statutory protections for its independence. The situation drew comparisons to the administration's simultaneous moves against other nominally independent entities, including attempts to assert control over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to install loyalists at the Federal Reserve's periphery.

By the spring of 2025, USIP had been significantly hollowed out. Much of its senior staff had departed, its foreign programs were suspended or handed off to other entities, and its physical headquarters — a prominent building near the Lincoln Memorial — became the subject of property disputes. The episode illustrated a recurring tension in the DOGE project: the speed and aggression of the interventions often outpaced any clear legal framework, creating chaos that generated headlines but also court orders, congressional scrutiny, and international concern from partner governments who had worked with USIP in active conflict zones.