Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid

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On Monday, the DC Metropolitan Police released the nearly six hours of body camera footage taken by their officers on March 17, 2025 when DOGE raided the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). This was as a direct result of my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the department, in which I was represented by Allyson Veile and Adam Marshall of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. 

In a DC court hearing last month, Judge Darlene Soltys ruled on the spot that the department had to make available all the footage from that day, despite their months of objecting to do so. The defense argued there were privacy concerns for the individuals featured in the video, but when Judge Soltys asked for a specific example to illustrate this concern, they couldn’t produce any. “I'm not going to just accept a generic representation that gives them a blanket disclosure for every word that they uttered,” Judge Soltys said. She also said “the withholding of this much of the footage is unjustified when the statute prohibits redacting the officers' likenesses, and the District has yet to identify any specific dangers,” per the court transcript we requested and obtained. 

I’ve spent the last few days carefully reviewing all of the footage and taking copious notes on moments big and small, but my main takeaway is this: The people representing the Trump administration knew they were entering a privately-owned building, and the DC MPD allowed them to enter despite that fact. 

From the footage it’s clear that the team sent to take over USIP consisted of Kenneth Jackson, the Trump-installed new President; Laken Rapier, who identified herself as a USAID staffer who would be serving as Jackson’s Chief-of-Staff; DOGE workers Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox; and DOGE lawyer Justin Aimonetti. (“They’re pretty young,” one officer could be heard saying of DOGE at one point.) They were let in a side entrance by MPD, who had been called there by both the USIP staffers who believed Trump’s people were trespassing, and by Trump’s people who believed the USIP staffers were remaining in the building unlawfully.

Led by Jason Bagshaw, MPD’s commander of the Special Operations Division, the footage shows local police officers were brought into a situation of which they were given very little background, and for which they were ill-equipped to handle. 

After the DOGE group showed up but before MPD arrived, the USIP building had been placed in lockdown mode, meaning all interior doors were locked and elevators were no longer operable. So when DOGE presented MPD with an order supposedly showing Jackson now controlled the building, it was up to MPD officers to get him and his team up to the 5th floor where USIP President George Moose remained in his office. Colin O’Brien, then USIP’s Chief of Security, certainly wasn’t going to help them, despite their many requests for him to do so. At one point MPD officers openly muse about pulling the fire alarm to open all of the doors, but decide against it. That’s why a great deal of the footage shows officers attempting to break the locks on a variety of doors, from interior glass doors to heavy duty fire doors in stairwells. 

You can hear an officer ask for “the kid who picks locks” and at one point we can see an officer go to his patrol car to retrieve a set of tools. One such tool was a long and skinny white device that could snake under a door if there was any room, and successfully helped them pop open a few. Later on, officers could be seen taking tools from an extensive locksmith set and using them to work on the doors. Those tools included knives, and at at least one point in the footage, there were two knives on one lock simultaneously, creating what appeared to be a dangerous situation. Fortunately no one was hurt. (Watch a clip of them using the tools here.)

While this manual work was being done by some officers throughout the large building, then-current USIP staffers and members of the DOGE team were coming face to face in hallways and the main lobby of the building while other officers observed. An officer can be heard during one of these moments as saying to O’Brien, “I’m stuck in the middle. You keep staring at me like I did something.” Nate Cavanaugh, the 28-year-old DOGE worker tells the officer a few moments later, “Two FBI agents are gonna be here in about 10 minutes.” 

Aside from O’Brien and Moose, the USIP employees on site that day were George Foote, USIP outside counsel since 1987; Anna Dean, USIP Chief of Staff; Sophia Lin, outside counsel; Gonzalo Gallegos, USIP Director of Communications; plus two others who can be seen, and janitorial/maintenance staff who are referenced but never appear on camera.

The most tense confrontation comes when Jackson, Foote, their respective teams and the MPD all converge in one of the ground floor hallways (you can view the clip here.) Foote and Lin try to better understand how the DOGE team got into the building in the first place but are shut down by Jackson. “I’m asking the questions, not you,” Jackson tells Foote. In the same clip, Foote and Lin try to advance down the hall but an officer and Jackson physically block their way. “You’ve got guns. I don’t,” Foote says. He and Lin are told they’re not allowed to collect their personal property until the newly appointed board meets. 

In another clip (which can be viewed here), Aimonetti, the DOGE lawyer, tells Commander Bagshaw that they plan to call the private security contractor, Inter-Con, that USIP had terminated the day before to re-hire them and help them get through the building. When another officer asks if the building is owned by GSA (the General Services Administration which typically deals with the federal government’s real estate), Aimonetti and Jackson confirm it is not. “It’s a private building, and that’s why we need MPD,” Jackson says. The other officer confirms the building is “private property” to which Aimonetti responds, “That’s the oddball link in the chain for us.”

And in another clip (view here) when Rapier is asked by an MPD officer if the USIP building is a federal building, she also confirms it is not. “No, it’s privately-owned by USIP.” 

Eventually the footage shows MPD officers managed to break their way through enough doors to reach the 5th floor and escort then-President Moose out of the building (view here.) “We thought you guys were our friends,” Moose says to Bagshaw and the other officers.

The litigation over who has lawful control of the USIP building plays on, with the Trump administration remaining control of the building for now. But this footage sheds important light on their intentions when they entered the building nearly one year ago and the role MPD played in helping them achieve their goal.

You can view all of the uploaded footage here.