The State Department just put its own employees on notice Thursday, warning that a mass purge of the department is coming "soon," according to a report.
Employees were formally notified Thursday of looming layoffs as the Trump administration consolidates the department in an attempt to reduce bloat, The New York Times reported. Diplomats said senior officials indicated layoff notices would come as soon as Friday morning.
In April, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his department "stifles creativity, lacks accountability, and occasionally veers into outright hostility to American interests."
"The Department has long struggled to perform basic diplomatic functions, even as both its size and cost to the American taxpayer has ballooned over the past fifteen years," he wrote in a Substack post. "The problem is not a lack of money, or even dedicated talent, but rather a system where everything takes too much time, costs too much money, involves too many individuals, and all too often ends up failing the American people."
Later in the piece, Rubio said the administration must confront the "underlying bureaucratic culture" he feels is pervasive in the department, and announced a broad reorganization of the department.
"We will drain the bloated, bureaucratic swamp, empowering the Department from the ground up," he vowed.
The Supreme Court overturned a lower court order that blocked the Trump administration’s sweeping layoff plan, allowing the administration to move forward with its reorganization and workforce purge.
While the court didn't rule on the legality of the downsizing plans, the justices said the administration would probably win their case that President Donald Trump's executive order authorizing the layoffs was lawful.