Nowhere is that more true than at the State Department, presided over by one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. When he took office in early 2018, Mr. Pompeo pledged to fill the scores of empty senior positions he inherited, reengage career staff and restore State’s “swagger.” He has done none of those things —though he has adopted a swaggering style in dismissing the legitimate questions and concerns of Congress, the media and U.S. allies.
A recent report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic staff laid out disturbing evidence of the damage done to U.S. diplomacy. Scores of senior positions and ambassadorships remain vacant or filled by acting officials, including 11 of the assistant secretary and undersecretary posts whose occupants typically are the workhorses of U.S. diplomacy. The Trump administration has never had a confirmed assistant secretary for South Asia, covering India and Pakistan; it has left the corresponding post for Europe and Eurasia vacant since February 2019, without bothering to offer a nominee.
Hundreds of veteran career diplomats have retired or resigned from State in the past 3 1/2 years, a devastating blow to the department’s institutional knowledge and capabilities. A number were driven out by political purges conducted by Trump appointees, according to a year-long investigation by State’s now-former inspector general, Steve Linick. Annual employee surveys reveal, according to the staff report, “serious concerns that coercive partisanship and prohibited personnel practices have run amok.”
There was a sevenfold increase from 2016 to 2019 in the percentage of State employees “who felt they could not disclose a suspected violation of law, rule, or regulation without fear of reprisal,” according to the report. There was a 34-point increase in those who said State’s senior leaders “did not maintain high levels of honesty and integrity.”
Mr. Pompeo has played a leading role in this ethical unraveling. He refused to publicly defend the respected career ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, when she was assailed by hustlers working with Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Yet when Trump friend Robert Wood Johnson IV, the political appointee serving as ambassador to Britain, was accused of sexist and racist behavior, Mr. Pompeo’s spokesperson rushed to his defense.
In May, Mr. Pompeo fired Mr. Linick, even as the inspector general was conducting an investigation into inappropriate use of staff by Mr. Pompeo and his wife for personal errands. In Senate testimony, the secretary dubiously claimed he was not aware of the ongoing investigation. But his replacement of Mr. Linick with another Trump political appointee, rather than a career official, spoke for itself. Mr. Pompeo, like his boss, is determined to avoid accountability for the damage he has done.