President Trump’s State Department transition team has asked scores of bureaucrats to resign from their positions no later than noon on Monday. The focus of the changes seems aimed at gutting the notoriously recalcitrant, hidebound, and, yes, leftist State Department staff and preventing any centers of resistance from forming as Marco Rubio builds his team.
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The forced departures, aimed at establishing a decisive break from the Biden administration, will result in an exodus of decorated veterans of the Foreign Service, including John Bass, the undersecretary for management and acting undersecretary for political affairs, and Geoff Pyatt, the assistant secretary for energy resources, said the officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions ahead of Monday’s inauguration.
Requesting the resignations, the prerogative of any incoming administration, indicates a desire to quickly shift the tone and makeup of the State Department as Trump seeks to upend the global diplomatic chessboard after four years of President Joe Biden. Key priorities for Trump include imposing sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries, ending the war in Ukraine, solidifying the wobbly ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.
Rubio’s team is forcing out basically all of State’s second tier leadership and replacing them with handpicked personnel, including people called out of retirement.
Some incoming presidents choose to keep a larger stable of career diplomats in senior roles until handpicked political appointees receive Senate confirmation. Instead, Trump has authorized the selection of more than 20 “senior bureau officials” to take over various divisions where leadership posts are being vacated this week. A number of those officials served in key roles in the State Department and the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, and some have been pulled out of retirement, officials familiar with the matter said.
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Those told to vacate their positions are still employed if they haven’t elected to retire or be separated from the civil or foreign service. But that may be a formality. They will have to compete for open jobs inside State and there is no guarantee that they will be successful. There is a time window after which they will be separated.
Other officials expressed frustration that the request to resign, on the Friday before the inauguration, came with little warning and that they have no indication whether they may apply for other jobs within the department.
This approach not only prevents the widespread sabotage of Trump’s agenda by borrowed-in progressives during his last administration, but it also sends a loud and resounding message that there is a new sheriff in town.
