State Department staff revolt as Rex Tillerson’s leadership results in ‘career purgatory’

Career civil servants in the State Department are considering lawyering up amid the ongoing saga resulting from claims of being placed in "purgatory" for pursuing Obama-era policy priorities.

As CNN reported Friday, some senior employees, including ambassadors, have been reduced to low-level jobs answering Freedom of Information Act requests — and have had their raised concerned ignored by higher-ups in the department.

Sources within the department told CNN morale is at an all-time low, "largely because of the perceived talent flight and an insular and distrustful approach from [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson and his team that's being interpreted by longtime employees as evidence their input is not valued."

Concerns about the State Department "talent flight" have been raised repeatedly since President Donald Trump took office last January, the most recent of which ended up costing the department their most-experienced sanctions official at a time when Tillerson and the president have paid lip service to exploring sanctions with North Korea as a non-military option of handling their leader, Kim Jong-un.