State Department reeling from escalating political scandal, former diplomats say

The US State Department has been deeply shaken by the rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry, as revelations that President Donald Trump enlisted diplomats to dig up dirt on a political rival threaten to tarnish its reputation as a nonpartisan arm of US foreign policy, former senior officials say.

A department where morale was already low under a president who, at times, has seemed hostile to its mission is reeling from days of disclosures that place it at the centre of an escalating political scandal, according to former diplomats who fear that the turmoil will damage American foreign policy objectives around the world.

“This has been a devastating three years for the Department of State,” said Heather Conley, a senior policy adviser at the State Department under President George W. Bush. “You can just feel there is a sense of disbelief. They don’t know who will be subpoenaed next.”

The first blow was the release of a rough transcript of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump pressed for an investigation of the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic rival. Trump also disparaged the former US ambassador to Ukraine, who was removed in May. On Friday text messages were released between Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker and two senior diplomats as they scrambled to accommodate Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s campaign to leverage US support for Ukraine in a search for potential political dirt.

“This is only the latest in a large number of very damaging things that have been done to the State Department,” said Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador to the UN and Russia under President George H.W. Bush. “It represents a new low in basically ignoring and indeed punishing the people who have made a professional commitment to the country and Constitution.”

They don’t know who will be subpoenaed next.

Former adviser Heather Conley