Looks like new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may be a bit shorthanded as he begins his tenure at the Department of State.
According to the Washington Post:
“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.”
The Post also reports that the mass resignation of senior State Department officials began shortly after Tillerson visited headquarters at Foggy Bottom. The first to resign was undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, who had reportedly been on the list of managers Trump was looking to replace as soon as a new person could be found to fill the post.
After Kennedy announced he would be leaving, others began falling like dominoes: 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, all announced their resignations effective immediately. Barr, Bond and Smith have all served both Democratic and Republican administrations over the years.
David Wade, who served as chief of staff for John Kerry at State, remarked:
“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate. Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”
Might such actions by senior managers also take place at other departments critical to American national security also be in the offing? Imagine if the same thing happens at the Defense Department, the CIA, and Homeland Security. That would leave this country vulnerable to all kinds of threats.
In other words, Donald Trump is already making each of us less safe and secure in a very dangerous world.
Featured Image Via Yahoo News
