Biden looks to rehire diplomats, rebuild State Department

WASHINGTON — Five days after President Donald Trump took office, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, assistant secretary of State for African Affairs, was summarily fired — the start of what was to become a purge of senior State Department officials and career professionals over nearly four years.

Now Thomas-Greenfield is back, leading President-elect Joe Biden’s State Department transition team to restore its devastated morale.

That is expected to include an ambitious campaign to rebuild the department’s ranks by recalling veteran officials like herself driven away and refilling many of the approximately 1,500 foreign service and civil servant jobs lost under Trump, as well as vacant ambassadorial positions.

Biden’s ability to fulfill his promise to restore “normalcy” in the U.S. will rely heavily on whether he can revitalize key agencies, starting with State and including the Environment Protection Agency, Education Department and Labor Department.

“There is going to be a need to massively rebuild the government,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that tries to improve the effectiveness of the federal government.

Biden’s government experience and respect for diplomacy can only go so far, current and former officials warn. Some of the damage inflicted under Trump — disparaging professional statecraft, dismantling interagency systems and filling positions with inexperienced friends — may take months if not years to repair.

“You can’t do it overnight. You’ve got to create a relationship of trust with the career workforce,” Stier said.