At one level, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s decision to fire the department’s inspector general tells us nothing we didn’t already know. Even before Pompeo enabled the smearing and sidelining of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch last year, he had made it clear that he would tolerate political attacks and even retaliation against members of the U.S. foreign service.
Just ask Inspector General Steve Linick, whose previous investigations into such instances and calls for accountability were flicked off by Pompeo. Yet Linick’s own Friday-night defenestration may have far more sinister consequences than past insults and indignities. Whether Linick was sacked for investigating Pompeo’s role in legally dubious arms sales to Saudi Arabia or his alleged use of State personnel to run personal errands is irrelevant. Either way, his unplanned departure tells the men and women of the State Department that there is no impartial recourse, no objective outlet for complaint. Pompeo is the final arbiter.
Linick’s firing will also have more subtle effects that will darken the building’s increasingly decrepit and empty hallways for years. Careers in the State Department, where I served for eight years from 1989 to 1997, often rise or fall on the basis of “corridor reputation”: your demonstrated competence, specialized skills, schmooze ability and friends higher up.
A case can be made that corridor reputation counted for too much at the State Department, especially in its heyday as a stratified white boys’ club. But there can be no argument that, under this administration, only one thing has really counted: loyalty to the secretary of state and the president.
On North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia, President Donald Trump has made clear that he does not put much stock in strategy, expertise, consistency, process or, finally, multilateral diplomacy. His gut and ego are his sole guides. Under his administration, career officers at State who have risen to positions of responsibility increasingly come in three types: Those who are true believers in the MAGA movement; go-along, get-along professionals willing to swallow outrage; and those who are overseeing issues or parts of the world that Trump either doesn’t care about or (more likely) doesn’t know exist.