I've been trying to imagine what it must be like to be a well paid senior nonpartisan career expert working in one of the federal departments, waiting for a Trump appointee to take over, and knowing his role is to destroy my life's work and that of all the other dedicated professionals in the department. I decided that there could be only one ethical course of action, but thought nobody actually facing that situation would see it that way. Fortunately, I was wrong.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.
Tillerson was actually inside the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday, taking meetings and getting the lay of the land. I reported Wednesday morning that the Trump team was narrowing its search for his No. 2, and that it was looking to replace the State Department’s long-serving undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy, who has been in that job for nine years, was actively involved in the transition and was angling to keep that job under Tillerson, three State Department officials told me.
Then suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. All are career foreign service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Kennedy will retire from the foreign service at the end of the month, officials said. The other officials could be given assignments elsewhere in the foreign service.
In addition, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr retired Jan. 20, and the director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, departed the same day. That amounts to a near-complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department, its overseas posts and its people.
“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry… [emphasis added]
From <Washington Post>
Major kudos to all the officials who resigned, rather that serve at the whim of Nectarine Nero!
RESIST!!
When I'm wrong, I say so. The Post article on which I based my conclusions was wrong. The State Department Officials who left did not quit. The Fuhrer purged them, presumably to make room for replacements selected by Vladimir Putin. More coming in another article.
13 Responses to “Abandon Ship!”
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Add to that the head of the Border Patrol, who is gone; no one knows whether he resigned or was fired, but he is gone. A career civil servant who understood and explained why a wall will not work.
Can't blame the people who resigned. I once quit a job because the department was getting a new senior manager that everyone there knew was a psycho. This must be worse.
Not only would they be subject to the whims of an overlord who has about as much sense for diplomacy as a rabid pit bull with its nuts caught in a mousetrap does, they'd be forced to perform every day the same twisted routine that Spicer and Conway are being forced to perform — pretending that this "administration" should be taken seriously and is something other than a sick joke.
Not to worry, Trump will just insult everybody on Twitter, then replace the departed managers with a bunch of rich cronies who don't know anything.
Trump's purge continues.
The man is in desperate need of psychiatric intervention – not only for his sake (although at his age, I'm not sure how much can be accomplished), but ours! [Pretty sure I've expressed those sentiments before. They're becoming clarion!]
Indeed, very worrisome, read about this this afternoon.
They're all bailing, and quite frankly, I don't blame them.
I heard about this yesterday on the BBC on a spoken news report – and then nothing – I looked this morning on the net – nothing. I rechecked on the BBC – both through various search engines and on the BBC website – nothing. I did find a youtube video, but didn't look at it – and the search engine provided a link for ….. The Sun newspaper. The Sun?!!! I looked on the broadsheets but still couldn't find anything. I find that most worrying.
God bless those with the courage to resign – it would be much worse if they had stayed.
Word now is that they didn't resign but were fired….who to believe??
I don't doubt that the parting was greatly welcomed on both sides – a divorce made in heaven? Either way, it reflects badly on the adminiastration, not the employees. Though the Apricot A$$hole will do his best to suppress it, I exppect it will leak. As long as some people have honor. At least until they start disappearing.
Thanks all. Sorry about the error. Thed truth is worse.
The article states: " Kennedy will retire from the foreign service at the end of the month, officials said. The other officials could be given assignments elsewhere in the foreign service."That would suggest that they didn't resign but were take from their posts, to make room for Drumpfian acolytes.
Don't worry about the misunderstanding TomCat. I'm sure there will be many of these news flashes which are just too unbelievable for our brains to accept at face value in time to come.
"That amounts to a near-complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department, its overseas posts and its people."
When I see the word 'housecleaning', I assume it is a top down orchestration, having been housecleaned out from my last job. It is quite obvious that Drumpfenfarten wants only 'yes men' in his administration. IDIOTS!!!
RESIST!!!
All of the collective wisdom that has been added up over the years has just evaporated! Unfrigginbelievable! The Tangerine Turd is gonna make it to where the US is NOT a first-world country! We'll be doin good to rank under the third-world ones!
Holy Mother of God! Please take this Tangerine Twerp AWAY!!!!!
Getting to this one late…by a few days. That, however, does not mean that the idiocy shown at the POUTUS, oh, nice typo, yes, it's the pouting POTUS, will not cease and desist, of its own will. But, maybe its own idiocy will grind it to powder!