State/OIG and OSC Reportedly Looking Into Political Reprisals @StateDept

September 12, 2018 By in Career Employees, Functional Bureaus, international organizations, Political Appointees, Politics, Realities of the FS, Spectacular, State Department, Trends Tags: , , , , , , ,

Via FP:

The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Inspector General has widened an investigation into alleged political retaliation by Trump administration officials against America’s diplomatic corps. It is probing claims that a political appointee in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs has taken action against career officials deemed insufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump, according to at least 10 current and former State Department officials.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog that oversees the federal government, is also investigating whether Trump’s political appointees—including Mari Stull, the aforementioned senior advisor in the international organization bureau—are carrying out political reprisals against career officials, according to two State Department officials familiar with the matter. The inspector general is also investigating allegations that Stull hurled homophobic slurs at a State Department staffer.

“The inspector general is looking into an allegation that Stull blocked the promotion of one career official to a top human rights post because the official had previously been involved in overseeing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees. The nominee had the backing of the department’s top career officials. But when Stull caught wind of the pending promotion, she convened a meeting with Moley and accused the candidate of having sympathy for Palestinian terrorists. Moley froze the appointment.”

We’ve been away; has AFSA said anything about this? Also if these allegations were true (we should note that allegations of political reprisals and loyalty questions are not limited to IO), we gotta ask – what kind of leadership is there in Foggy Bottom that considers this acceptable behavior? You and I, and all of IO, and Foggy Bottom are looking forward to the results of these investigations. Perhaps, it would also be useful for the oversight committees to look into the turn over and curtailments of career employees specific to IO.

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