Here is more from Politico:
An academic who has drawn criticism for inflammatory statements on race and praise of the Chinese government has been chosen by the Trump administration to lead the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The State Department said Friday that Darren Beattie would be acting president of the USIP, an independent, congressionally funded organization that the administration sought to eliminate earlier this year.
Beattie, who was fired from his job as a speechwriter during the first Trump administration for speaking at a conference attended by white nationalists, will keep his current role running the State Department’s worldwide public diplomacy efforts.
Beattie, who previously served as a visiting instructor at Duke University, has since been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the State Department’s Fulbright Program and shutter its Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub.
Trump signed an executive order firing USIP President George Moose and most of USIP’s board in February. The remaining board members, including Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, subsequently installed Department of Government Efficiency staffer Kenneth Jackson, as acting president. DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh later took over as acting president.
The Trump administration laid off most of the embattled institute’s staff in March following a tense standoff between USIP staffers and DOGE employees at the institute’s headquarters. A federal judge subsequently blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the organization, which was founded in 1984.
It is unclear how many people now work at USIP.