State Dept. diplomats got an order – “Resign before Trump’s inauguration!”

Trump: “Get out!”
Photo: MSN

Trump’s team requested the high-level resignations as the president-elect prepares a sharp break with the Biden administration.

Scores of senior career diplomats are resigning from the State Department effective at noon on Monday after receiving instructions to do so from President-elect Donald Trump’s aides, three U.S. officials familiar with the matter said, ‘The Washington Post’ reports.

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.

“It is entirely appropriate for the transition to seek officials who share President Trump’s vision for putting our nation and America’s working men and women first. We have a lot of failures to fix, and that requires a committed team focused on the same goals,” said a spokesperson for the transition team.

On Friday, the Trump team made clear to many of the department’s career officials serving as assistant secretaries and in other high-level positions that they would not be needed beyond Monday.

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.

Trump campaigned on dismantling what he has called the “deep state” of federal bureaucrats whom he views as lacking loyalty and undermining his agenda. He has pledged to kill workforce protections for thousands of government employees in a move expected to face significant legal challenges.

His pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), said the State Department needs to prioritize Trump’s “America First” agenda, and he vowed to make the department “relevant again.”

“What has happened over the last 20 years under multiple administrations is the influence of the State Department has declined,” Rubio said at his confirmation hearing last week. “We have to be at that table when decisions are being made, and the State Department has to be a source of creative ideas and effective implementation.”

It’s unclear how far the Trump administration will go in rooting out perceived enemies at Foggy Bottom, which Trump often calls the “Deep State Department.”

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida), has told reporters that pushing back against “woke” bureaucrats should be a priority.

Anyone “nefariously supporting a radical agenda… should be aware that we’ll be looking for them,” he said last week, “and we will be looking for creating authorities to make sure that their existence doesn’t continue in the State Department.”

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