Donald Trump has been hit with an emergency motion seeking to block him from carving his name onto the independent, privately owned U.S. Institute of Peace building.
The administration has been locked in a legal battle for more than a year with members of the board who were ousted by Trump as he sought to take over the institute.
Like the beleaguered Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Trump declared the USIP—which was created by Congress as a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit committed to promoting democracy worldwide—the “Donald J. United States Institute of Peace” and added his name to the building’s headquarters in December.
His name, however, was written in removable letters that were bolted onto the façade.
Apparently “unsatisfied with the relative impermanence of external lettering,” the administration now plans to carve Trump’s name into the building even though the litigation is still playing out, according to the emergency motion.
“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 motion argued. “Alteration of the design to impose a different message would cause irreparable harm.”
A contractor has already been chosen, and a formal request has been made for the work to begin, according to the motion.
The administration began trying to dismantle the nonprofit in February 2025 as part of Elon Musk’s murky DOGE initiative to shrink the federal government, including firing its president, George Moose, and most of the USIP board.
A federal judge ruled in May 2025 that the administration’s actions were unlawful and reinstated the fired board members, but the appellate court stayed the ruling a month later while the appeals process plays out.
The emergency motion argued that thanks to the stay, the briefing in the case has dragged on for almost a full year past the original briefing schedule, and asked the court to order the administration to maintain the status quo in the meantime.
The motion also pointed to Trump’s repeated attempts to put his name on the side of the Kennedy Center, despite a federal court ruling multiple times that Congress clearly established the storied arts venue as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy Jr. alone.
“Notwithstanding the importance that the President and his supporters place on attaching his name to notable buildings,” the administration 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,” the motion argued.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
