More top-tier officials left the U.S. Department of State on Friday in a quiet group resignation, according to a Foreign Policy magazine report published on Sunday.
"Dissatisfaction is a big factor," said one official who has opted for early retirement rather than to fight on in an agency that is being undermined by crippling budget cuts and serially undercut by a president who has no knowledge or curiosity about the workings of international diplomacy.
Acting director of the Bureau for International Organization Affairs Tracey Anne Jacobson, U.S. Assistance Secretary of State of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Rivington and top European affairs official John Heffern have all joined a "growing wave of resignations" driven by the chaos within the agency and President Donald Trump's gross mishandling of the agency's staffing and hiring process.
"Foreign policy professionals," wrote Colum Lynch, are "being pushed out or resigning over frustration with an administration that has downgraded the importance of Washington’s diplomatic corps."
Jacobson is ending a 30-year career serving under multiple presidents as an ambassador to U.S. ambassador to Kosovo, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. She declined to state why she tended her resignation on Friday.
"The White House has been seeking to impose cuts of as much as 37 percent to the State Department budget," said Lynch. "The administration is targeting even higher cuts for the U.N. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has boasted that she has secured more than $600 million in cuts to peacekeeping missions."
