Turnover and Turmoil Inside the State Department

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2019

⏱️ 65 minutes

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Summary

This summer has been a tumultuous one inside the U.S. State Department. In August, the department’s Office of the Inspector General handed down a scathing report alleging political manipulation and abusive practices inside the department’s International Organization bureau—only one of a series of similar allegations. At the same time, a number of career State Department officials ranging from assistant secretaries to the rank-and-file have resigned due to alleged complaints and disagreements with Trump administration officials and policies.

To dig into these developments and consider what they might mean for the State Department’s present and future, Scott R. Anderson spoke with reporters Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer of Foreign Policy magazine, and Lawfare’s Margaret Taylor, who is a fellow alumnus of the State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor and former Democratic Counsel for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair
0:07.2	podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair.
0:14.7	That's patreon.com slash LawFair.
0:18.2	Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair
0:25.6	no bull and the aftermath.
0:34.0	When they came in and started acting the way they did according to the SOIG report and
0:39.3	our reporting, in a way it really reflected or captured the zeitgeist of how Trump appointees
0:46.6	or the Trump era seems to treat professional diplomats, which is looking on them with
0:52.0	this stain, seeing them as the famous Quokos as deep state.
0:58.0	And after they came in and we started reporting this out, I mean, the stories started snowballing.
1:03.0	We first broke this news, I think about 14 or 15 months ago.
1:06.5	And since then we've heard a steady drum beat of complaints of warnings, sounding alarm
1:12.9	bells of what was going on within this bureau.
1:15.7	And of course that sparked multiple congressional probes as well as this investigation by the
1:21.1	Office of Inspector General and also the Office of Special Counsel and the Federal Government.
1:27.0	I'm Scott Ar Anderson and this is the LawFair podcast for September 7th, 2019.
1:33.2	This summer has been a tumultuous one inside the U.S. State Department.
1:37.1	Earlier this month, the Department's Office of the Inspector General handed down a scathing
1:41.1	report, alleging political manipulation and abusive practices inside the Department's
1:45.8	Internal Organization Bureau.
1:48.2	One of only a series of similar allegations.
1:51.2	At the same time, a number of career state department officials ranging from assistant
	...

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