How are Trump loyalists to the US State Department?

There was a widespread shock in Washington last month when Lew Olowski, a modest and unknown official, was appointed as Director of the Public Prosecution for the US State Department-one of the largest positions of the Supreme Command at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Former national security lawyer, Olovsky entered the external service just four years ago. In his new job, which usually goes to a veteran diplomat, he is, in fact, the head of human resources in one of the largest American government agencies

AFSA, the Labor Foreign Service Union, said that it was like “a young military officer … responsible for the Pentagon’s regime.”

But Olovsky had one thing that was going to: his membership in Ben Franklin’s fellowship (BFF), a conservative network of retired diplomats and service that has made great steps in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since President Donald Trump re -inserted the White House.

BFF insists that it is not partisan, but it does not make any bones about its support for the Trump business schedule in the first. In a blog of a blog late last year, Phil Linderman, its president, said that the role of the organization is to direct the profession in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “towards diplomacy that enhances American sovereignty, strong national borders, fair trade practices, and doubt about pluralism.”

“FSOS alignment and the governorate (external service officers) and civil service employees are a special minority in the state, but they are there,” Linderman said. These officials are now upgraded all over the section.

FT 11 has identified BFF colleagues who have taken great roles in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since the opening of Trump. One of them is Christopher Landau, US Ambassador to Mexico during the first period of Trump, who was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister in March.

But colleagues were also exploited for roles ranging from stability-based deputy to the deputy assistant trustees and senior office officials-a noticeable success rate for an organization that was created only last year.

One of the officials said that for many BFF colleagues that are now promoted, “the main qualification – and the primary – is that they agree with the Trump agenda.”

The person said: “The state erodes itself from the inside to the outside.”

Some even described BFF as “Maga Deep State” – the appointment of Simon Hansninson, one of the founders of the fellowship, refuses.

“For us, the last absolute thing we want to do is to re-establish a deep state-and this exactly what it has stood,” said Hanskinson, a former foreign ministry official, who is now an older research colleague at the Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation.

“Maga’s expression carries such luggage.”

He also rejected suggestions from BFF critics that they were made up of indisputable foreign service officers who felt the victim of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs diversity policies, equality, integration and ease of access. One of the officials described it as “revenge for weak white males.”

The state erodes itself from the inside to the outside

Hansinson said it was clear that “women have been promoted at a higher rate of men over the past twenty years” in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but he insisted that he simply wanted to replace a form of discrimination with another.

He said: “What we really want to see is to return to merit and equality in opportunities, rather than equal results.”

But the founders of the fellowship are proud of its increasing influence, saying that they want to simulate the success of the federal association, the conservative network that has provided many judicial candidates to Trump during his first term.

On his blog, Linderman said that BFF organizers were “following the play book” of the Federal Association.

“It is definitely a model we consider,” Hansinson said.

Foggy Bottom employees, the Washington neighborhood where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is located, is largely noticed by the broader audience, with other developments in the agency that attracts much greater attention.

This includes the closure of the American Agency for International Development, the agency, which has an area of ​​10,000 people with a budget of $ 44 billion, has become a symbol of the American soft power.

There was also a widespread dismay at the American Foreign Policy Foundation in the collusion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Trump’s deportation programs and the accreditation of students accused of involvement in the campus protests. Marco Rubio, Minister of Foreign Affairs, boasted about canceling thousands of student visas since the change in the government.

But employee changes also raised concerns. Gregory Mix, Democrats of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, accused Rubio of “replacing the professionals who are experienced with political loyalists, undermining one of the basic principles of foreign service.”

He said that one of the most blatant examples is the appointment of Olovsky, who once worked as a general adviser to the Daily Clard News Foundation in Taker Karlson, as a senior official of the World Talent Management Office. Maria Bernenikat replaced, a black experienced diplomat.

Mix said that Rubio “appointed a beginner officer on a tour of the outside of the leadership of the World Talents Department, to replace an ambassador twice with contracts of service, which she encountered as an African American woman.” “This is not about race – it is about experience, integrity and basic qualifications.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to the requests for suspension.

Trump has never hidden his contempt for a “deep state” who claimed that he prevented him during his first term in his post, and he clarified his desire to harmonize the Ministry of Foreign Affairs closely with the Maga goals, including the shooting of the great bureaucrats he sees unwanted.

In a statement after its inauguration, the White House ordered “Policies, programs and programs of employees and operations” at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “to the consensus of” American first foreign policy, which puts America and its interests first. “

This process started even before Trump started his second term, as his transitional teams requested large numbers of great professional diplomats for roles.

The purification was unusual: Most political appointed appointed when a new president takes office, but the functional FSOS tends to stay in the Post from one administration to another.

Jin Shaheen, a member of the Democratic Senate, said that those who are dragging aside “non -party public officials” with “contracts of experience in the service of Republicans and Democrats and they are the key to US national security.”

Some political dates also sparked eyebrows, even among Republicans. Darine Betty, who was exploited as a proxy for public diplomacy and public affairs in February, worked as a letter of speech to Trump during his first term, but he left his position in 2018 after he was informed that he had spoken at a conference attended by the white nationalists. Last year, X announced that “specialized white men should be responsible if you want things to do.”

Rubio defended the appointment of Betty, saying that he was brought “because he was strongly committed to the end of the control programs that are being operated outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

American diplomats say separately that professional experience FSOS has now retired or resigned in large numbers, in part due to concerns about political developments in the agency.

One of them said: “They are experts of bleeding at an unprecedented rate.”

“The state is seized by the dangerous roots.”