11/9/19
WASHINGTON — State Department Foreign Service officers usually express their views in formal diplomatic cables, but these days they are using closed Facebook groups and encrypted apps to convey their pride in Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to Ukraine, whose House testimony opened the floodgates on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. #GoMasha is their rallying cry. In private conversations, they trade admiring notes about career State Department officials like William B. Taylor Jr. and George P. Kent, who delivered damning testimony about a shadow Ukraine policy infected by partisan politics and presidential conspiracy theories, and William V. Roebuck, a senior diplomat in Syria who wrote a searing memo on how Mr. Trump abandoned the Kurds and upended American influence. And they are opening their wallets to help raise money — including nearly $10,000 last Monday alone — to offset the legal bills of department officials called to testify before Congress. Rarely has the State Department, often seen as a staid pillar of the establishment, been the center of a revolt against a president and his top appointees. But as a parade of department officials has recounted to lawmakers how policy was hijacked by partisan politics, many career diplomats say they have been inspired by their colleagues’ willingness to stand up to far more powerful voices after nearly three years of being ignored or disparaged by Mr. Trump and those he has chosen to lead the department.
“What we’ve seen is a dawning recognition that Foreign Service officers are just as deeply patriotic as their colleagues in the military,” said Molly Montgomery, who spent 14 years in the Foreign Service before leaving government last year after a stint in the office of Vice President Mike Pence. “There’s a feeling of immense pride that the public is seeing Foreign Service officers for who they are.” But the uprising has come at a cost, deepening the divide between career diplomats and an administration that took office determined to cut their budget and diminish their influence. A growing number of Foreign Service officers have opted to leave, many earlier than planned; one recent retirement class was by far the largest ever, according to the American Foreign Service Association. “There’s outrage over the mistreatment of career officers and failure to stand up for them,” said William J. Burns, who served as an ambassador under four presidents. Some career diplomats fear that the new respect they have earned from the public may do little to shield them from Trump administration officials who are probably wary of them now more than ever, particularly if the president is elected to a second term next year. “There’s a deep worry about what will become of the Foreign Service when this is all over,” said Ms. Montgomery, the former Foreign Service officer who briefly worked for Mr. Pence, “about who will be left, and whether the norm of an apolitical Foreign Service trusted by the State Department’s political leadership can be restored.”
