Demoralized State Department personnel question Pompeo’s role in Ukraine crisis
By Karen DeYoung, John Hudson, Josh Dawsey and
Ellen Nakashima
Oct. 7, 2019 at 5:40 p.m. EDT
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned Monday morning from a European trip to a State Department workforce that is increasingly demoralized and resentful under his leadership, amid a growing belief that he has subordinated its mission and abandoned colleagues in the service of President Trump’s political aims.
The “prevailing mood is low and getting lower, if it can,” said Thomas R. Pickering, a diplomatic dean who served in high-ranking department positions and held seven ambassadorships, including to Russia and the United Nations, under six presidents of both parties.
State Department officials strongly supported $141 million in department funds that Congress appropriated this year for Ukraine — in addition to $250 million in aid from the Defense Department. But there is no indication that Pompeo objected when Trump withheld all of the assistance while Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani — and the president himself — pressed the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son.
Most worrisome to the department is concern that Pompeo did not intervene to protect U.S. diplomats either enlisted by Giuliani to assist his efforts or punished for being insufficiently committed to the cause, according to more than a dozen current and former officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/demoralized-state-department-personnel-question-pompeos-role-in-ukraine-crisis/2019/10/07/85536c3c-e93b-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html
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