A wave of Trump-demanded departures hits senior leadership at the State Department
WASHINGTON (AP) — A large number of senior career diplomats who served in politically appointed leadership positions at the State Department have left their posts at the demand of the incoming Trump administration, which plans to install its own people in those positions, according to current and outgoing U.S. officials.
Personnel changes in the senior ranks of the department, like those at all federal agencies, are not uncommon after a presidential election, and career officials serving in those roles are required, just as non-career political appointees, to submit letters of resignation before an incoming administration takes office.
In the past, some of those resignations have not been accepted, allowing career officials to remain in their posts at least temporarily until the new president can nominate his team. That offers some degree of continuity in the day-to-day running of the bureaucracy.
One senior career diplomat who will be staying, Lisa Kenna, a former ambassador to Peru who served in senior positions under Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, was appointed acting secretary of state shortly after Monday's inauguration, officials said.
Kenna will only be in that job for a matter of hours, until Trump's nominee for top diplomat, Marco Rubio, is confirmed by the Senate, which is expected later Monday. Kenna will then return to a job she held under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as executive secretary.
While turnover is inevitable and expected during any change of administration, the departures come at an increasingly fraught time, notably in Ukraine and the Middle East, in the foreign policy realm. Conflict is raging between Russia and Ukraine, and new negotiations will be required early next month to extend and expand a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Thus, changes in the top ranks of the State Department and the White House National Security Council may have a more significant impact than they might have had during previous transitions.
At the NSC, President Donald Trump's incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, will on Monday begin an evaluation of non-political career detailees, according to a person familiar with planning.
The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said guidance was expected to be soon issued to the impacted NSC staff.
Earlier this month incoming Trump administration officials had questioned some career civil servants about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by Trump’s team, a second U.S. official familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. That official also spoke on the condition of the anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel matter.
The NSC is an arm of the White House tasked with advising and assisting the president on national security and foreign policy and coordinating among various government agencies. It is common for experts detailed to the NSC to carry over from one administration to the next, even when the White House changes parties.
The NSC staff members who have been questioned about their loyalty are largely subject matter experts who have been loaned to the White House by federal agencies — the State Department, FBI and CIA, for example — for temporary duty that typically lasts one to two years.
The plans for evaluation appeared to be hedging from earlier suggestions that the administration would take immediate, dramatic action on Day 1 to overhaul the NSC staff. Waltz told Breitbart News this month that “everybody is going to resign at 12:01 on January 20.” He added that he wanted the NSC to be staffed by personnel who are “100% aligned with the president’s agenda.”
“We’re working through our process to get everybody their clearances and through the transition process now,” Waltz said. “Our folks know who we want out in the agencies, we’re putting those requests in, and in terms of the detailees they’re all going to go back.”
It was not immediately clear if the officials being removed from their posts at the State Department had been quizzed about their political loyalties, although most have served for years under multiple administrations.
Among the career diplomats to be reassigned are acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs John Bass, who until Trump took office was serving as the No. 3 U.S. diplomat, and all of the other under secretaries of state in charge of management and policy portfolios, as well as all assistant secretaries of state, who deal with regional issues, according to three current and former officials familiar with the personnel changes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel changes that have not been publicly announced.
Unless Trump moves quickly to nominate people for those positions, the jobs will be filled in many cases by the outgoing officials’ current subordinates, who are career diplomats often with years of experience under both Republican and Democratic administrations. And, despite the changes, career diplomats will continue to occupy senior roles in the State Department hierarchy, although it was not immediately clear how many.
The outgoing officials were not fired, but were rather told last week, in some cases on Friday, that their pro forma resignations had been accepted. They will remain employees of the State Department as foreign service officers unless they decide to retire or otherwise leave government.
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