Top officials at US State Department abruptly resign
The State Department鈥檚 senior management core resigned abruptly on Wednesday, according to reports, in a move that could jam the department鈥檚 cogs in the early days of the Trump administration.
Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary for management since the last year of the Bush presidency, left along with three of his top officials 鈥揂ssistant 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, .听
The news comes a week after Trump鈥檚 pick for secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was confirmed by the Senate foreign relations committee, though the full Senate has not yet voted on his nomination. It remains unclear what prompted the sudden resignations. Mr. Kennedy had been active in the Trump transition and had been reported to have been angling to stay on under the new administration, according to the Washington Post.
The departures could slow international efforts by the Trump administration. Management posts, filled by career foreign service officers who serve for Republican and Democratic administrations alike, are charged with keeping embassies running 鈥� they handle everything from technical issues to human resources, security, finances, and real estate matters, . At the lower levels, they work closely with ambassadors at individual embassies; farther up the chain, they oversee allocations and other department resources.听
The departure of Kennedy and his closest staff depletes an already-eroded core of senior management staff:聽Gregory Starr, assistant secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, retired last week, along with Lydia Muniz, director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations. And that Thomas聽Countryman, the acting undersecretary for arms control and international security, was asked to leave by Friday.
Some degree of turnover typically accompanies handoffs of power, even among the career class, and it remains unclear how many of the departures might be classified as such.
But the abrupt resignation of Kennedy and company could add political charge to the event: as the FBI investigated Hillary Clinton鈥檚 handling of classified emails on a private server during the presidential campaign, Kennedy repeatedly tried to convince FBI officials that one of the emails in question should be considered declassified, according to documents released in October to CNN. 聽
The documents also who intimated that a 鈥渜uid pro quo鈥� could have been involved in Kennedy鈥檚 efforts. Then-candidate Trump leaped on the allegations, calling it 鈥渙ne of the great miscarriages of justice in the history of our country鈥� and accusing the State Department of 鈥渢rying to cover up Hillary鈥檚 crimes鈥�, .
David Wade, who served under former Secretary of State John Kerry as the Department鈥檚聽chief of staff, told the Post that their loss would leave a 鈥渧oid.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that鈥檚 incredibly difficult to replicate,鈥� said Mr. Wade. 鈥淒epartment expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.鈥�
