2019: annus horribilis to Department of State under Trump - Robbie Gramer (Foreign Policy)

A Rocky Year for U.S. Diplomacy

Whether it was confrontations with Iran and China or the never-ending Ukraine imbroglio, 2019 was a tumultuous year for American foreign policy.

Robbie Gramer

Foreign Policy, December 25, 2019, 8:00 AM

President Donald Trump speaks alongside U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the White House in Washington on June 21, 2018.  Win McNamee/Getty Images

As the State Department grapples with top foreign-policy priorities abroad, it’s weathering a political firestorm at home. U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior diplomats are trying to revive stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea and peace talks in Afghanistan, a protracted crisis in Venezuela, and winding down the deadly conflict in Syria. 

But in Washington, the department is reeling as it finds itself at the center of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry into Trump. Career diplomats, including former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, acting Ambassador William Taylor, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, and others were thrust into the national spotlight as they were compelled to testify before the bitterly divided congressional panel investigating Trump. The president and his allies have castigated the career diplomats, plunging the diplomatic corps’ morale to new lows and sharpening the divide between career and politically appointed officials in Foggy Bottom. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo first came into office in 2018 vowing to restore the State Department’s “swagger.” But the secretary of state—eyeing his political future with a possible Senate run in Kansas—has avoided defending the career diplomats drawn into the political storm. 

Here are five reads on the rocky year America’s diplomatic corps has had—and the impacts on U.S. foreign policy abroad, from Ukraine to China to Iran.

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1. U.S. Diplomacy’s ‘Gordon Problem’ Goes Way Beyond Gordon Sondland

by Robbie Gramer, Nov. 21

The high-profile impeachment saga has had the side effect of bringing national attention to presidents tapping political donors with no diplomatic experience as ambassadors. Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, is wealthy former hotel magnate and campaign donor who muscled his way into Ukraine policy and found himself at the center of fiery House hearings investigating Trump for impeachable offenses. This piece analyzes the trend among Democratic and Republican administrations to gift deep-pocketed donors ambassadorships and outlines how some former career diplomats see Sondland as a warning for future U.S. foreign-policy missteps if the trend continues—something Washington may regret as China beefs up its own diplomatic presence in all corners of the world. Thus far, only one Democratic candidate in the 2020 election race—progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren—has pledged to stop the practice of handing off ambassador posts to wealthy novices. 

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2. Fear and Loathing at Pompeo’s State Department

by Robbie Gramer, Colum Lynch, and Elias Groll, with Amy Mackinnon, Nov. 1

Some career diplomats feel betrayed by Pompeo’s refusal to offer any public support for the officials dragged into the impeachment investigation, even as the president and his allies continue to criticize them and cast doubt on their loyalties. But if Pompeo’s exact role in the events that led up to the impeachment inquiry isn’t yet completely clear, one thing is: He has a bright political future in the Republican Party. The department’s waning faith in their boss doesn’t seem to have a negative impact on his rising stardom in Trump’s Republican Party. As Pompeo inches closer to running for Senate in Kansas to shore up a hotly contested Senate map in 2020, Trump’s base and other factions of the Republican party have high hopes for him.

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3. The United States Can’t Cede the U.N. to China

by Michael McCaul, Sept. 24

Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, raised the alarm bells in September of China’s growing clout at the United Nations, an issue the Trump administration has tried to respond to even as it castigates the international body and pares back U.S. commitments to it. McCaul expresses concern that China will use its growing power to “bend the U.N. system in support of its own authoritarian agenda.” Other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle share his concern, reflecting a broader and growing battle between the United States and China on the diplomatic front.

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U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Knight Craft delivers a statement at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Oct. 23, 2017.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP

4. A Republican Rainmaker Comes to Turtle Bay

by Colum Lynch, with Robbie Gramer, June 4

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley quickly emerged in the chaotic first year of Trump’s tenure as one of the strongest voices in the administration. Her successor, Kelly Knight Craft, hasn’t garnered nearly as much clout or headlines, but her appointment says a lot about how the Trump administration views the U.N. Craft is the first ever U.S. ambassador to the international institution who comes from a class of political donors with next to no government or foreign-policy experience before the administration started. Craft, the wife of a wealthy coal magnate, previously served as Trump’s ambassador to Canada, and her appointment reflected the administration’s interest in elevating political donors to senior government roles. This profile explains more.

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5. Echoes of Iraq in Trump’s Confrontation With Iran

by Michael Hirsh and Lara Seligman, May 8

An analysis of the Trump administration’s confrontational approach to Iran suggests disturbing similarities to the run-up to war with Iraq. Not least was the dominant role of then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, who as a senior official in the administration of President George W. Bush was a fierce advocate of war who was accused of manipulating intelligence to justify an invasion. 

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

More from Foreign Policy

By Taboola

Com Diplomacia sob ataque, parlamentares formam frente de defesa... nos EUA

O presidente Trump, como outros que procuram imitá-lo por aí, conduz um cerrado ataque a toda a burocracia estatal. Agora, sob acusações de impeachment por manipular processos públicos e condutas no limite criminosas para fins eleitoreiros (e portanto pessoais), ataca funcionários do Departamento de Estado, que sempre atuaram de acordo com os valores e princípios da democracia americana.
Parlamentares formam uma frente em defesa do Departamento de Estado, algo que já poderia estar ocorrendo no Brasil igualmente.
Uma matéria da Foreign Policy sobre o assunto.

With State Department Under Fire, Lawmakers Form a Diplomacy Caucus

The bipartisan House move seeks to bolster support for U.S. diplomats as Ukraine impeachment inquiry puts heat on the foreign service.

Robbie Gramer
Foreign Policy, December 3, 2019, 10:37 AM

Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent and top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine William Taylor testify before Congress during the impeachment inquiry in Washington on Nov. 13.  Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are forming a new caucus aimed at strengthening support for U.S. diplomats as the State Department finds itself at the center of a fraught political battle over the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump. 

Four representatives—two Democrats and two Republicans—are expected to announce the creation of a Diplomacy Caucus this week, three of the members behind the caucus tell Foreign Policy. The caucus, they say, will bring together members of the House of Representatives interested in crafting new legislation to strengthen U.S. diplomatic institutions and showcase bipartisan congressional support for an embattled diplomatic corps. 

“Since the beginning of our country’s history, thousands of Americans have put their lives on the line in the name of furthering our nation’s diplomatic mission and hundreds have made the ultimate sacrifice,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican and one of the four co-founders of the caucus. Before joining Congress, Fitzpatrick was an FBI official who alongside with diplomats in U.S. embassies overseas. “This caucus will provide a stronger voice for them within Congress and help to make the challenges they and their families face a little bit easier,” he said. 

Democrats involved in the caucus have tied its founding to the ongoing impeachment investigation, centered on whether President Donald Trump improperly withheld U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless it agreed to investigate one of his Democratic presidential rivals. Diplomats used to operating behind the scenes found themselves in a national spotlight last month as they testified as fact witnesses in bitterly partisan public impeachment hearings. Republicans decried the process as unfounded and unfair, and Trump has vehemently denied wrongdoing and labeled the impeachment process a “hoax.” Some diplomats compelled to testify, including former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, were publicly disparaged by the president and his allies.  

“With America’s diplomacy and American diplomats at the center of a lot of the Ukraine scandal, the public getting a sense of what these people do in terms of serving the country, we thought this would be an optimal time to start a bipartisan group that could support American foreign policy,” said Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, another co-founder of the caucus. 

There are hundreds of caucuses in the House of Representatives, ranging from powerful fixtures that drive major agendas on Capitol Hill, such as the Congressional Black Caucus or the Freedom Caucus, to the small and obscure, such as the Congressional Boating Caucus and the Congressional Battery Energy Storage Caucus. The caucuses themselves have little authority or legal sway, but provide a platform for members with similar interests and agendas to collaborate and eventually craft legislation on the issue in question.

The other founding members of the Diplomacy Caucus are Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Republican Rep. Ann Wagner, who served as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush.  

Madeleine Albright, a former secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, welcomed the creation of such a caucus. “With the State Department under attack and in crisis, our diplomatic professionals—both civil service and foreign service—need to know there is broad support for their mission on Capitol Hill as well as an appreciation for the sacrifices they make in order to keep our country strong and secure,” she told Foreign Policy. “I hope the Diplomacy Caucus will help reassure them of the support they have.”

Andrew Albertson, the executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Foreign Policy for America, said “there are a number of projects in the works” when asked about tangible legislation the caucus could focus on. He said some have made the case for “rewriting” the Foreign Service Act of 1980—the legislation that helped craft the current structure of the foreign service—to modernize the department, with an eye toward emulating the U.S. military’s approach to professional development and education. He also said the caucus could take up initiatives to help recruit and retain top talent at the department, as well as legislation to better support the spouses and family of diplomats serving overseas. Such reforms aren’t headline-grabbers, experts concede, but they say they are important for the day-to-day work of diplomats. 

Trump has repeatedly tried to slash the budget for diplomacy and foreign aid during his three years in office, though those efforts were rebuffed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The impeachment investigation, which revealed how the president’s allies ousted Yovanovitch from her post as ambassador in Kyiv after a smear campaign, has also demoralized the diplomatic corps.

But Albertson said the problems dogging the State Department go beyond Trump. “The current weakness of the State Department isn’t just the fault of this White House or the last two Secretaries of State. For decades now, we’ve been asking more and more of our extraordinary diplomats, like Marie Yovanovitch, while giving them less and less of what they need to be successful,” he said. 

Read More

Fear and Loathing at Pompeo’s State Department

Career diplomats feel betrayed as the secretary of state stays silent on the Ukraine inquiry. But Pompeo remains a star in Republican circles as he eyes a possible Senate run.

Diplomats Who Testified in Impeachment Inquiry Get Lifeline Through Legal Fund

Donors across the United States have provided more than a quarter of a million dollars so far.

State Department Misled Congress on Ouster of Ukraine Ambassador

A new trove of State Department emails sheds fresh light on events surrounding the impeachment inquiry. 

“I think there’s great value in having the voice of this Caucus, speaking both to our diplomats who may be looking for leadership from within the United States, and to our partners, allies, and even foes overseas, to remind them that diplomacy is still a core tenet of American foreign policy, despite rhetoric coming from the [White House],” Cicilline told Foreign Policy.

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

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By Taboola

O impeachment e a diplomacia - George Haynal (Globalist)

O impeachment de Trump – que merece ser deposto dez vezes, por vinte outros motivos – vai colocar, provavelmente pela primeira vez, a diplomacia na linha de tiro, se ouso dizer, pois que uma das, vinte ou trinta, razões para o impedimento do grande trapaceiro envolve justamente funcionários do Departamento de Estado.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Battleground Ukraine: Trump Vs. the State Department

Reflections on the art of diplomacy.

George Haynal 

The Globalist, November 13, 2019

According to an old adage, “An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent abroad to lie for the good of his country.”

Gender considerations aside, this view, expressed by Thomas Wotton, an early 17th century English diplomat in the service of James I., remains applicable to this day. 

Diplomats are supposed to be people charged with forming relations of trust abroad and maintaining the required trust at home that, posted however far away, they do not disgrace themselves or the country they represent. 

They are abroad to serve the constitutional interests, i.e., “the good” of their country, as far as and wherever its interests are at stake. 

Precisely how they have to spin their message — or as Wotton puts it, “lie” — is a matter for decision in individual cases, with the iron proviso that if a lie destroys trust, the diplomat in question will lose all effectiveness in future. 

Diplomats as policymakers, not just representatives

What Wotton’s pithy definition does not include is the role of diplomats as contributors to policymaking at home. They bring an indispensable perspective, and often a reality check to decisions of their political masters back in the capital city. 

For that input to have value, it must be informed, complete and objective. Whatever diplomats do abroad, they cannot be less than fully candid with those making the policy at home that the diplomats are subsequently expected to execute abroad. 

What the Ukraine investigation shows is that diplomats were obliged to make a critical choice: Should they be candid with the U.S. Congress — or indeed, lie to Congress in the partisan interest of the government in power. 

Drawing a line

Different parts of the U.S. diplomatic system appear to have made different decisions on how to make these distinctions. Career diplomats chose to draw a line. Those ambassadors who essentially bought their commissions through campaign contributions, decided to cross that line of propriety and truthfulness. 

Ambassadors are formally appointed by their Head of State, i.e., as a representative of the country they hail from and the values that constitute it. They are not the personal representative of the politician atop the government at any given time. 

This distinction may seem like a constitutional nicety, but it is one that most professionals active in the field of diplomacy in advanced democracies take to heart. They represent their country, not just the political interests of those in power. 

Is this to be judged differently in countries where, like in the United States, the President is both head of state and head of government? 

The dual nature of the American Presidency can in some cases indeed create confusion as to whether national and political interest is supreme in the direction which the diplomatic representatives receive from him and his office. 

The constitution vs. “the boss”

While conflicts between the constitution and the currently prevailing political order have not been common, in the Ukraine case, this does not apply. 

Critical constitutional norms have been ignored in the management of U.S. diplomacy and diplomats have been directed to withhold or twist information from those providing constitutional oversight at home. 

Professional diplomats know that not only must they work within the confines of the constitution both at home and abroad. 

When challenged, they have to put loyalty to the national interest, which is permanent, above partisan preferences, which are transitory. 

Two types of diplomats

Under Trump, U.S. diplomats appear to have to make this distinction at their own peril. This is what is at the root of the intramural war within the U.S. State Department. 

On one side, the political appointees — i.e., those who essentially bought their commissions — were prepared to disregard the constitution in their actions abroad and were prepared to lie to their own countrymen at home. On the other side are the career diplomats who were not prepared to do so. 

Mr. Trump has sought to discredit the latter as the “deep state,” as if holding onto the idea of the United States as the source of a values-based world order is a disgrace. 

This severely misrepresents what career diplomats stand for and how they are trained to act. They are members of a duty-driven service that is sworn to uphold the values of the constitution even if those stand in the way of the current top holder of political power, whatever the consequences for their country. 

Conclusion

The stakes in the Ukraine controversy are very high and go beyond the controversy itself. 

If the “diplomatic code” of preserving the constitutional bounds is to be a victim of Trumpian politics, this will significantly alter the role of the United States in global affairs.

The world will have lost the long-time key engineer who has driven and given shape and direction to the present world order. 

The alternative, as all have reason to fear, is entropy and chaos. 

George Haynal is a Senior Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and a former head of the Policy Planning Staff of the Canadian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

O Departamento de Estado num nova era de macartismo - Foreign Policy

Um outro ministério das Relações Exteriores sofrendo pela extrema politização e ideologização das relações de trabalho, aliás um do mais importante aliado estrangeiro da tropa bolsonarista, que também trata as relações exteriores do Brasil como um assunto de família ou de preferências políticas.
Muitos diplomatas de carreira já desistiram e abandonaram o Department of State, frustrados com o ambiente extremamente negativo ali prevalecente. Diplomatas brasileiros também estão intimidados pelo clima atualmente reinante na Secretaria de Estado, em vista de algumas loucuras sendo propagadas na Casa de Rio Branco.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Fear and Loathing at Pompeo’s State Department

Career diplomats feel betrayed as the secretary of state stays silent on the Ukraine inquiry. But Pompeo remains a star in Republican circles as he eyes a possible Senate run.

Robbie Gramer

Foreign Policy, November 1, 2019, 6:21 PM

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters at the State Department in Washington on March 15.  Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

In 2018, Mike Pompeo was welcomed to the U.S. State Department with open arms by diplomats eager for a secretary who wanted to engage with them and boasted a close personal relationship with the president. Now that very relationship with the White House—and the Ukraine-related impeachment inquiry that is tangled up in it—is driving a wedge between career foreign service officials and a secretary of state who appears to be halfway out the door and possibly eyeing his own future political career.

One by one, senior U.S. diplomats have seen their careers damaged or potentially destroyed as they’ve been compelled to give testimony before Congress over President Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to leverage U.S. foreign policy for political gain—while Pompeo has remained largely silent. The latest was Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, who was grilled on Capitol Hill this week over his role in removing former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. 

In his confirmation hearing to be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia, Sullivan confirmed that Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his associates engaged in a concerted campaign to oust Yovanovitch over her resistance to Giuliani’s “shadow” foreign policy, and that he was the one who informed her she was being removed despite serving “admirably and capably.”

“I like John personally, but I think he willingly closed his eyes to the corruption that was happening at the State Department,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told several reporters after the hearing on Wednesday. “I think that’s really unfortunate. He’s a good person, and he should’ve been speaking out.”

Pompeo has declined to defend Yovanovitch in numerous press interviews in the weeks since the impeachment probe started, saying he would not publicly discuss internal personnel matters.

Michael McKinley, a career diplomat and former advisor to Pompeo who recently resigned, reportedly testified that he pushed the secretary to show support for Yovanovitch, but Pompeo declined to do so. McKinley also reportedly testified that Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine, coupled with other unaddressed mismanagement issues at the department, drove him to resign. 

Scrutiny over Pompeo’s handling of the State Department comes as it deals with the fallout from several scandals involving political appointees mistreating or abusing staff. Together with the impeachment probe, these issues have exacerbated the atmosphere of unease and mistrust within the department, according to more than a dozen current and former State Department officials, some of whom spoke to Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity.

William Burns, a former career diplomat who served in senior roles in Republican and Democratic administrations, likened the current atmosphere in Foggy Bottom to the era of McCarthyism in the 1950s, considered a historic low point for the State Department in the Cold War. 

Daniel Fried, who served as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in the George W. Bush administration, agreed that the divisions between the White House and State Department were undermining U.S. foreign policy. “In his treatment of Masha Yovanovitch, not only is [Pompeo] failing to protect his people, he’s not protecting the president, as he’s allowing him to make decisions based on misinformation or disinformation,” said Fried. “If the president makes decisions based on what he hears on parts of Fox News, you’ve just made the Kremlin’s job easier.”

Pompeo has pushed back on reports of morale issues. “I see these stories about morale being low. I see things precisely the opposite. I see motivated officers. I’ve watched them perform in Syria this week. I’ve watched them perform in difficult situations during my year and a half as secretary of state,” Pompeo told ABC News in a televised interview on Oct. 20. “I’m incredibly proud of the work they’ve done, and I will always defend them when it’s appropriate.”

On Burns’s assessment, Pompeo responded: “I think Bill Burns must be auditioning to be Elizabeth Warren’s secretary of state.”

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Report says the two appointees targeted career officials they perceived as politically disloyal.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Recalled in ‘Political Hit Job,’ Lawmakers Say

Marie Yovanovitch stepping down as ambassador follows attacks from both right-wing media figures in the United States and a senior Ukrainian official.

But if diplomats are becoming increasingly disaffected, the person who matters most to Pompeo’s stature in the administration—Trump—is not. 

Unlike other former Trump officials, Pompeo has thus far weathered the chaotic world and revolving door of Trump’s Washington, where scandals and abrupt sackings have taken out a slew of cabinet officials before him. 

In stark contrast to his predecessor, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Pompeo has always remained in lockstep with the president and, perhaps just as importantly, never found himself on the wrong side of a Trump tweet. “I argue with everyone,” Trump said in an interview with New York Magazine last year. “Except Pompeo … I don’t think I’ve had an argument with Pompeo!”

His close relationship with the president signals a bright political future—including nagging rumors he will run for Senate in Kansas in 2020—even if his popularity inside the Beltway has taken a hit. 

Though the impeachment scandal has dragged the State Department into the fiercest hyperpartisan battle yet in Trump’s presidency, Pompeo has steadfastly defended the president and denied Trump did anything wrong in pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate potential Democratic rivals. 

Despite multiple State Department employees testifying about Trump’s pressure campaign toward Ukraine, there is no evidence that it has damaged Pompeo’s personal relationship with the president, according to a source close to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the two men’s relationship. Indeed, the continued strength of that relationship has important political implications for Pompeo. 

“He’s inner circle with the president and clearly that bolsters his credentials with the base,” the source said. 

And if Trump has stoked tensions and rifts within some factions of the Republican Party, Pompeo has not. “Conservatives have a great deal of trust in Secretary Pompeo. He is very well respected and well liked in all elements of the Republican Party,” said Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank. “He’s proven to be one of the president’s most trusted and closest advisors at the cabinet level.”

For months, top Republican figures have pushed Pompeo to run for Senate in his adopted home state of Kansas in 2020, a potential stepping stone to a future presidential race. Pompeo has repeatedly denied he would run and said he is focusing on his current job. But he has made four trips to Kansas this year, some ostensibly on official secretary of state duties and apparently on the State Department’s tab. Pompeo was in Kansas last weekend during the raid on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for a wedding of a close family friend.

The trips to Kansas have fueled rumors that he is still considering a Senate run, and by doing interviews with local TV and radio stations, it’s obvious Pompeo is trying to stay a familiar face to Kansas voters. 

Republican strategists expect that if Pompeo runs, he will clear the Republican field in the state, perhaps with the exception of Kris Kobach, Kansas’s lightning-rod former secretary of state who Democrats believe could hand them a victory in the traditionally Republican state. Pompeo, on the other hand, would likely win the state easily. 

And there are good political incentives for Pompeo to leave the Trump administration, as it would put his political destiny in his own hands, regardless of whether Trump wins reelection in 2020. “He’s an incredibly ambitious person who clearly has plans for himself beyond even the secretary of state’s office,” said one Senate Republican strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

“If Trump wins, [Pompeo] can be one of the administration’s biggest allies and supporters in the Senate,” the strategist said. “If Trump does not win reelection, then he has a hub, a safe landing spot, and a position of relevance where he could plan a run for higher office.” 

While a slew of career officials have been subpoenaed to testify before lawmakers in the ongoing impeachment probe, Pompeo has thus far been able to keep himself at arm’s length from the rapidly escalating investigation, even as questions loom as to what he knew and whether he made any efforts to curb the back channel to Ukraine that was carved out by the president and his allies. 

Pompeo was made aware of Giuliani’s efforts to push unproven allegations about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s role in corrupt practices in Ukraine as early as March of this year, when Giuliani sent the secretary of state a packet of documents outlining his allegations. Giuliani told Foreign Policy that, in a follow-up phone call with Pompeo, the secretary said he would pass them on to the appropriate people to investigate. 

William Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine after Yovanovitch was removed, testified that he and other officials were alarmed by the push to withhold aid from Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to investigate the Bidens. The White House press secretary lashed out at Taylor in response, saying “far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats” were driving the impeachment process.

Pompeo has yet to affirm or reject the White House’s characterization of Taylor as a radical unelected bureaucrat. 

The State Department did not respond to several requests for comment for this story. 

Rep. Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says the Trump administration is mistreating career diplomats and lays the blame for the current climate in the State Department squarely at the feet of Pompeo, who once pledged to restore the department’s “swagger.” 

“For all of Secretary Pompeo’s blustery talk of swagger, I’ve never seen an administration treat our diplomats and civil servants so poorly. Since day one of the Trump presidency, the White House has tried to gut the budget for diplomacy, and State Department personnel have been targets for abuse, harassment, and retaliation,” Engel told Foreign Policy. “Rather than putting a stop to it, Secretary Pompeo has permitted a culture of impunity to fester and even tried to intimidate witnesses in the impeachment inquiry.”

Pompeo’s future political ambitions have also drawn fire from lawmakers overseeing the State Department and even some officials within the department. They charge that the secretary is more focused on the next job than his current one at a time when the department is in the crosshairs of a political firefight.

Pompeo has repeatedly denied the rumors and said he is focused on his job as secretary of state. He has also said he is unfazed by the impeachment inquiry, which he has criticized as being unjust and unfair to the president. “Whatever the noise is in Washington or whatever some journalist wants to ask about some storyline that’s going on, the American people should know that the State Department will continue to do its mission,” he told the Wichita Eagle during his latest visit to Kansas on Oct. 24. 

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, believes Pompeo is improperly mixing business with politics. On Oct. 29, Menendez sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency, requesting that it investigate whether Pompeo violated regulations that prohibit federal employees from using their post in government for partisan political activities. 

Pompeo fired back at the accusations in an interview with the Mid-America Network news outlet on Friday, calling Menendez’s letter “just all silliness.”

“I think in Senator Menendez’s mind it’s probably hard for him to imagine why anybody would want to go to Kansas. It’s the kind of left-coast, elitist liberalism that can’t understand how someone would want to go to the amazing place like Kansas,” Pompeo said.

Staff writer Amy Mackinnon contributed to this report. 

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

Colum Lynch is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @columlynch

Elias Groll is a staff writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @EliasGroll