On March 15, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the elimination of several federal entities including the nonpartisan pro-democracy foreign policy think tank, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. On April 1, one day after receiving a visit from Elon Musk‘s DOGE team, Ambassador Mark Green, the president and CEO of the Wilson Center, resigned.
[NOTE: The Wilson Center annual report describes its “scholarship-driven, nonpartisan analysis [providing] critical context to the world’s most pressing challenges…and the state of democracy around the globe.”]
Green, a Republican, has served as Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2017 to 2020, the US Ambassador to Tanzania from 2007 to 2009, a Congressman representing Wisconsin for four terms, the Executive Director of the McCain Institute, and a leader of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) during both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Although the Wilson Center was established within the Smithsonian Institution, it has its own board of trustees composed of both government officials (currently Secretaries Linda McMahon, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Marco Rubio) and of people from the private sector appointed by the POTUS. One-third of the center’s operating funds come from federal funds.
[Note: This isn’t the first time Trump — and his backers at the Heritage Foundation — has tried to eliminate the Wilson Center. In March 2017, Trump proposed a budget that called for eliminating federal funding for the center. In its “Budget Blueprint for FY2023,” the Heritage Foundation also called for the elimination of federal funding supporting the Wilson Center.]
Trump and the Heritage Foundation find themselves on the same page as Vladimir Putin and Russia when it comes to wanting to cancel this venerable Washington think tank: In November 2022, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office in Moscow designated the Wilson Center as an “undesirable organization” under Russian law, barring its activities in the country.
[The Wilson Center had reported in 2019 on Russia’s new “undesirable organization” law, which it said marked “a new level of repression” in Russia. The law was first used against activists of the Open Russia movement, which promoted reforms to Russian society including free and fair elections, political education, protection of journalists and activists, and ensuring media independence.]
Open Russia was founded in 2001 by former billionaire Russian Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was later arrested by the Russian government, sentenced to nine years in prison on fraud charges and had his financial assets frozen. In 2013, Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky, who upon his release immediately left Russia and was granted residency in Switzerland.
Other American pro-Democracy organizations that are on both Russia’s “undesirable organization” list and the Trump administration’s list of agencies to be eliminated or have federal funds frozen include the Ronald Reagan-founded International Republican Institute (where Rubio was a board member before becoming Secretary of State), the National Democratic Institute (also born from Reagan’s vision), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was founded in 1983 with “the stated aim of advancing democracy worldwide and counter communist influence abroad.”
Elon Musk recently called the NED an “evil organization” and accused it of unspecific “crimes.”
According to the Wilson Center’s 2019 report on Russia’s “undesirable organizations” law, in none of the cases targeting such organizations “did the General Prosecutor’s Office identify any evidence of the threats delineated in the law.”
Note: On January 20, 2025, Khodorkovsky shared photos of him in America, at the Capital One Arena celebrating the second inauguration of President Trump.
At the inauguration today—may as well check it out, since I've been invited, it's a good chance to satisfy my curiosity and meet some new people.
— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (@khodorkovsky_en) January 20, 2025
It's interesting how laid-back the security is, considering the massive crowds. I mean, sure, there are plenty of patrol officers… pic.twitter.com/BNabFXh89c
With the photos (above), Khodorkovsky wrote: “At the inauguration today—may as well check it out, since I’ve been invited, it’s a good chance to satisfy my curiosity and meet some new people. It’s interesting how laid-back the security is, considering the massive crowds. I mean, sure, there are plenty of patrol officers around and they’ve blocked off half the city, but they still let hundreds of thousands of people through without much screening. Go figure!”
