Rex Tillerson. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)
Now this is a statement. Look, either Donald Trump is an existential threat to global freedom… or he’s not. If he’s not, then the normal, Chuck Schumer-party politics ways of fighting his administration are appropriate. If he is, well, then you come strong or you don’t come at all.
The senior management at the U.S. State Department has seen enough in these six days to make their call. From the Washington Post:
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era…
[S]uddenly on Wednesday afternoon, [undersecretary for management Patrick Kennedy] and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. All are career foreign service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
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I haven’t heard the official White House spin on these departures, but I can guess: “These losers would have been fired anyway. Actually, I’m firing them now. They were horrible. Benghazi was horrible. They shouldn’t be allowed to run the State Department. We’re going to start winning again. That’s why I fired them. Bigly.”
What you see here from Kennedy and the others is what it looks like to have a moral and ethical principle.
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It also throws down the gauntlet for other senior civil servants who are thinking about appeasing the Trump regime. I’m looking directly at the Justice Department now. How many of you really intend to work for Jeff Sessions as he helps Trump make America safe again for racist employers? What about civil servants in the Civil Rights Division? Do you really want to work for John Gore?
When this wave of white supremacy and nationalism is over, there’s going to be an accounting. Who fought, who stood on principle, and who helped Trump do his work.
It’s time to pick a side.
The State Department’s entire senior management team just resigned [Washington Post]
Earlier: Jones Day In The (White) House: The Biglaw Firm Fills Top Jobs In The Trump Administration
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.