The State Department’s deputy secretary and undersecretary admitted last week that they could’ve done more to protect the department’s career officials from the Trump administration’s campaign of political retaliation and harassment.
Now that our diplomatic corps have been hollowed out and replaced with sycophants and career criminals the State Department is detecting a hint of a problem.
This stuff about not having the authority to fire an Assistant Secretary is bunk! Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger fired a poltically appointed Assistant Secretary, Elizabeth Tamposi, A/S for Consular Affairs in 1982, when she was found to have gone searching through Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s passport files. She was looking for evidence to back up a right wing conspiracy theory that Clinton had renounced his citizenship while visiting Moscow as a college student.
So… sorry about your pensions. Hope your spouse is still employed somewhere or the kids have a parent’s suite on their property. Have you given any thought to Amway?
Starting January 20, 2021 a lot of federal government jobs will be open and available for qualified applicants. Until then the government is hollowed out by the traitorous Trump regime.
The winning Democrat in 2021 really should look at rehiring all of the people who were forced out of the government, especially the ones doing science and non-partisan research studies. A lot of them won’t be available, but the ones who are should be brought back if at all possible, at their current status, because it’s way too much knowledge going out the door…we need them to have an effective government. Which is, of course, the entire point of the Republicans trashing everything they can, they want to ruin the government so they will have the freedom to get away with anything they desire.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that what was going on was completely unacceptable,” Hale said, according to Foreign Policy. “Misconduct is a soft word, frankly, to use for what has occurred.”
Yes. “Deliberate sabotage” is actually a much better fit. Try using it sometime.
What was going on was blatantly illegal - that’s what civil service and career positions are all about - you do your job and you job doesn’t depend on the politics of the political appointees. Pompeo can’t fire his assistants who acted illegally? That seems to me to be failing to perform one of the basic functions of his position. And these guys expect to succeed in a world where Trump calls the shots, Pompeo can’t fire the bad guys because they’re Trump picks, and they’ve just blown the whistle publicly on illegal conduct by Trump’s chosen emissaries at state. Wow. Why does that seem dumb?
Apparently the buck no longer stops anywhere. It just keeps getting more and more confused.
One potential problem not mentioned in the article - anyone accepting an incentive payment to retire early signs an agreement that they will return the money if they return to Federal employment within 5 years of their separation date.
This is separate from retirement pay and could amount to as much as $40,000. (Since taxes are withheld before you receive the payment, you’d have to pay back the whole amount and then work out the details with the IRS.)
According to the OPM website, OPM can waive this requirement if the employee has a critical skill and the Agency head declares an emergency. In that case the person can work for their old agency - but only for the duration of the emergency.
So the people running the Snake Oil Sale that used to be Foggy Bottom are as worthless and inefffectual as the man who put them into their “Government” jobs. Why the shock, surprise and outrage? "Government by incompetant people results in incompetant “Leadership” and policies.
Can you blame anyone and everyone with a shred of knowledge and or integrity for running for the hills as fast as they can? They don’t want to be tarred and feathered with the same brush that history is certain to take to this “Administration.” That’s for sure. And who can blame them? In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that being fired by this "Administration " for excessive competance will one day be considered a badge of honor.
Yes. Good point! Elizabeth Tamposi was fired for accessing, and asking others to access, various State Department files related to Ross Perot and the Clintons. It’s perhaps an even more interesting event than it was at the time. Bill Barr (yes, Bill Barr), who had spoken out numerous times against such things, surprised everyone by asking for an independent council to be appointed to investigate Tamposi and others. He appointed, amazingly enough in retrospect, Joseph diGenova. There was significant evidence that the Bush White House, probably through Janet Mullins (Grissom) had instructed Tamposi and others to do the digging into the Clinton and Perot files. Also, there was a lot of evidence that various Bush WH people had lied during an earlier IG investigation. After four years, Digenova declared pretty much everyone involved was innnocent and announced, ta da!, that the investigation shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Sound kind familiar? In short, from a few decades distant, the Tamposi State Department files scandal looks like there was quite a bit of wrong doing at the highest levels and Barr took advantage of the transition period to appoint someone who would bury the whole business and preempt any investigation by the Clinton DoJ.
However, Sullivan told department staffers that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wouldn’t be firing the two Trump appointees because he doesn’t have the authority to discipline officials who were hired directly by the President.
This article actually somewhat misstates the situation. If you read the original FP article, one of them already quit (saying this is all a deep state plot to undermine Trump), and Pompeo can’t just fire the other one because as an assistant SoS he’s a Senate-confirmed appointee, so Trump would have to do it.