Darren Beattie Installed as Acting Head of U.S. Institute of Peace

Darren Beattie was installed by the gutted board as Acting President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a taxpayer-funded agency with the mission of preventing and resolving violent conflicts.

This is the latest move in Trump’s efforts to dismantle the agency and take its assets, such as its headquarters building. The legal challenge to shutting it down has been swinging back and forth as it moves through the courts.

Donald Trump stripped the USIP board in March 2025, firing eleven members and leaving only Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin. Beattie will continue to also serve as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy at the State Department, a role which includes messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism even though he is prominent in promoting extremism

In 2018 Beattie was fired from his speechwriter role in Trump’s first White House team after CNN reported that he spoke at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club conference, an event known for spotlighting white nationalists and far right extremists with racist, anti-immigrant speech.

After being fired, Beattie aligned more strongly with the far right. He founded and runs, alongside his federal jobs, the website Revolver News which publishes such material as conspiracy theories and disinformation about the January 6th attack on the Capitol attack. He was also rewarded by Trump with a three year term as a member of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad starting in late 2020. Although Beattie identifies as Jewish, the Jewish community was generally furious with that appointment. Biden demanded his resignation from that appointment in January 2022.