WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Billionaire Elon Musk's U.S. Department of Government Efficiency attempted to place a team with independent nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice, the nonprofit said, marking a further expansion of the cost-cutting agency's move to exercise control over non-governmental groups. "DOGE staffers Nick Cavanaugh and Justin Aimonetti informed us of its plan to assign a DOGE team to the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) as part of its larger plan to assign DOGE teams to 'every institute or agency that has congressional monies appropriated to it,'" the independent nonprofit, which advocates for lower incarceration rates, said in a statement.