Trump administration shutters DC foreign policy think tank Wilson Center

(Reuters) - Nearly all employees at the Wilson Center, a non-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, have been placed on leave, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

About 130 staff at the center, chartered by Congress in 1968, were blocked from their email and dismissed shortly after Elon Musk's government efficiency task force began focusing on the institution this week, the Times reported, citing an internal email and people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The center's staff will be paid while on leave, but will soon be fired, as has happened at several federal institutions that Musk's DOGE team has shuttered, the paper said.

Five employees - positions mandated by the center's Congressional charter - will remain: a president, two federal employees and two researchers on fellowships.

A spokesperson for the Wilson Center declined to comment. DOGE did not respond to a request for comment.

A White House official confirmed that Mark Green, a former Republican congressman and the president of the center since 2021, had "resigned voluntarily." A new president, Natasha Jacome, had been appointed, the official added.

Green did not respond to a request for comment.

About 30% of the center's budget is appropriated annually by congress, with the rest coming from private donations and grants.

Private donations made to the Wilson Center would be returned, the Times reported. It was not clear what would happen with the center's endowment.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Don Durfee and Kate Mayberry)