Ho-Ho-Ho
Talking Points Memo has been following the story of DOGE thugs breaking into the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, D.C. TPM has coverage here, and here after a court hearing
But first, this blurb from The Independent on Wednesday’s hearing:
In a hearing in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, District Judge Beryl Howell asked Justice Department attorneys whether Donald Trump’s administration could enforce his executive order seeking to shutter the agency “without using the force of guns and threats by DOGE against American citizens.”
“I mean, this conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigations, using arms of law enforcement … probably terrorizing employees and staff at the institute, when there are so many other lawful ways to accomplish the goals … why?” she said. “Just because DOGE is in a rush?”
What’s changed (escalated) in the last week is that DOGE now has now forced its way into an independent, nonprofit, national institute separate from the Executive Branch, and did it by coopting D.C. Metro Police and Inter-Con, an armed, private security force with government contracts.
Josh Marshall is concerned. You should be too:
I want to draw out a critical element of what happened on Monday and which we learned today. DOGE went to the private security contractor working for USIP and essentially said, you don’t have a clear legal or ethical ability to do this. But if you don’t want to lose all your federal contracts, you have to. And they did.
This cuts to the core of DOGE’s role as a rogue operation inside the federal government and critically one that very much by design engineered its ability to work across the entire federal government. One department or another … none of that matters. DOGE is operating everywhere.
The critical point is this: There are a lot of very large federal security contractors who wield violence and force on behalf of the US government. In theory, they do it under the state’s monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and under law. But those contractors are also extremely vulnerable to DOGE because DOGE can make contracts disappear, absent any kind of review process, beyond the reach of the clout of stakeholders within any one agency, anywhere in the government. So the basic transition that occurred here has many potential applications. Maybe DOGE says to a policing contractor. Look, it’s not pretty. But if you don’t want to lose your contracts you’re going to have to break up that protest. Or maybe you need to take the mayor into custody. Simple point: lot of capacity of state violence and a lot of cash. And DOGE operates front to back across the transaction.
“Four out of every ten people who work for the U.S. government are private contractors,” according to the Project on Government Oversight (2017). U.S. government agencies employ thousands of contractors around the world, many of them provide private security services. They’d like to keep their lucrative contracts. So long as DOGE and its operatives inside the Trump administration exist, “Nice contract ya got there…” will provide leverage most won’t be able to resist when called on to do Trump’s pardon-powered bidding, even if the military under Pete Hegseth doesn’t. And we know what Trump wants done with protesters.
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