U.S. diplomats around the world are reportedly afraid that communicating truthful statements and analysis seen as contradicting the official Trump administration line could get them fired.
“The environment facing the Foreign Service today is unlike anything we’ve seen,” a union for State Department workers told staff members in an August email obtained by NBC News.
“Even if offered discreetly, any statement, verbal or written, can be politicized and used against you,” the message continues. “That is the reality we face.”
“What we’re seeing in the diplomatic corps right now is fear,” retired diplomat John Dinkelman, president of the American Foreign Service Service Association, told the outlet.
The State Department “values candid insights from patriotic Americans who have chosen to serve their country,” a spokesperson said in response to the claims.
The reported fears inside the diplomat corps come following a string of high-profile firings and policy changes at the senior levels of U.S. intelligence and foreign service at the State Department and beyond.
In May, two senior National Intelligence Council officials were fired for allegedly leaking to the media, following the issuance of a memo that rejected the Trump administration’s claims that the Nicholás Maduro regime in Venezuela is in control of the Tren de Aragua gang.
By July, more than 1,300 State Department employees had been laid off from the agency.
In August, the general leading the Defense Intelligence Agency was sacked, after the agency produced a preliminary report contradicting administration claims that strikes on Iran “obliterated” that country’s nuclear capacities.
That same month, outside the diplomatic and intelligence realm, the Trump administration axed the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, claiming without evidence she had manipulated jobs numbers for partisan purposes following a disappointing July jobs report.
The State Department and foreign engagements have been a key focus of the White House, which dismantlied the U.S. Agency for International Development and folded it into State, imperiling millions of lives and millions of dollars relying on past U.S. aid projects.
Earlier this week, a group of decorated former FBI agents sued senior administration officials, alleging they had been targets of a “campaign of retribution” because they declined to go after agents who had worked on Trump-related investigations.
