Political officials are told to resign
WASHINGTON — The White House formally asked for the resignations of its ambassadors and other political appointees Thursday as a wave of senior officials announced their departure from the government after President Donald Trump-incited supporters who had assaulted the Capitol a day earlier.
Hours after Trump conceded the reality of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, the White House issued a demand for the resignations of most of the estimated 4,000 political appointees working in the Trump administration, including Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors and other policy advisers. That normally routine step for presidential administrations is usually issued within a few weeks of the election.
Trump, who had disputed the election outcome at a rally Wednesday, had resisted sending the order until Thursday.
The resignations are effective Jan. 20, the day Biden is inaugurated, according to the order sent by Chris Liddell, deputy White House chief of staff, a copy of which was obtained by the New York Times.
The delay in requesting the resignations had irritated some foreign allies who want to plan for Biden’s policies but were awaiting the departure of Trump’s ambassadors.
A lack of a clear directive to leave also risked allowing political appointees to burrow into the federal bureaucracy until they could be identified by Biden.
As a result, Trump’s silence created anxiety and confusion across the federal workforce, officials said.
“There’s been no memo sent to anybody,” Christopher Hill, who was an ambassador to four countries under Presidents Bill Clinton, Bush and Barack Obama, said Wednesday, before the White House order was issued. “And so a number of ambassadors are saying, ‘Hey, I’ll just stay until I’m informed otherwise.’”
Although U.S. ambassadors are expected to submit resignation letters at the end of a presidential term, tradition holds that only those from political appointees are accepted. Currently, about 57 percent of ambassadors are career diplomats, and they generally will be allowed to remain in their posts for the duration of their three-year assignments.