The Trump administration is aggressively working to force out the State Department’s most senior foreign service officers while promoting staffers seen as more politically loyal, according to nine current and former employees.
Those sources told the Washington Sun the department has shrunk the number of senior roles by freezing positions or downgrading them, and they said the intention seems clear.
“The State Department is trying to get people to quit,” one current foreign service officer said.
Top political appointees have directly asked some veteran personnel to retire. Others have been reassigned to the Administration Bureau, which employees describe as a “purgatory” where careers “go to die.”
“It’s like musical chairs but taking chairs away faster so people wind up with nowhere to go,” said one employee who recently left.
Last year the State Department laid off more than 1,300 employees, which disproportionately hit senior diplomats. About 3,500 foreign service employees have left since President Donald Trump returned to office, according to the American Foreign Service Association. Most of them were in the senior ranks or one level below.
Meanwhile, the department has increasingly relied on the Ben Franklin Fellowship, a group founded in 2024 by Trump-aligned current and former State officials, to find people to hire and promote, staff said. One person said they sat on an interview panel for a senior job and were told the process was just for show, because the position had already been promised to a Ben Franklin Fellow.
State has also added a “fidelity” section to employee performance reviews asking managers to assess workers’ commitment to “completely aligning oneself and one’s team” with current government goals.
Former diplomats warn the changes are making people afraid to give honest advice.
“Someone who can retire or is more economically secure is more likely to tell the emperor that the emperor has no clothes,” one recently departed officer said. “Junior people are more likely to just say yes.”
Kelly Adams-Smith, a 28-year veteran who left after the administration withdrew her nomination as ambassador to Moldova, said it became clear her “expertise was not going to be valued or welcome," but State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott was unapologetic about the moves.
“Those bureaucrats who are complaining to the press prove the point that they shouldn’t have, and can’t be, trusted with sensitive information,” Pigott said.
He added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio values “candid insights from patriotic Americans” but will not tolerate anyone working “to actively undermine the duly elected president’s objectives.”
Another recently retired officer predicted a “10-year gap” in seasoned expertise that “will be detrimental to American interests,” while another former former diplomat warned of a looming crisis.
“Honest advice is not being rendered,” the former diplomat said. “At some point, God forbid, something is going to come back and bite them, and maybe all of us, in the behind.”