The Foreign Service Journal, December 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2019 15 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ivanka Trump tour Wichita State University Tech National Center for Aviation Training, Oct. 24. The panel said Congress should consider legislation to increase the transparency of political ads on social media. It urged social media sites to do a better job of notifying users of exposure to disinformation. It also recommended that the Trump administration establish an interagency task force to monitor Rus- sia’s efforts to interfere with the election. Clinton Email Investigation Ends A three-year State Department investigation into former Secre- tary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server “uncovered no persuasive evidence of systemic misuse” of classi- fied information, according to a report from the Diplomatic Security Office of Information Security’s Program Appli- cations Division (known as APD). APD completed the report in September and shared it with Congress in mid-October. After reviewing 33,000 emails sent to or from Secretary Clinton’s private server between 2009 and 2013, APD investiga- tors found that 38 current or former employees were “culpable” of violating security procedures, but none of the material in the emails had been marked as classified at the time. (Read more about this in State VP Tom Yazdgerdi’s column on p. 66. ) Has Sec. Pompeo Violated the Hatch Act? S enator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking member of the Senate For- eign Relations Committee, has requested a probe to determine whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent trips to Kansas violated the Hatch Act, which restricts federal government employees from engaging in political activities. Senator Menendez sent a letter on Oct. 29 asking the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates potential Hatch Act violations, to look into Secre- tary Pompeo’s three trips to Kansas since March, “apparently at the expense of the Department of State.” “For months, public reports have persisted that the Secretary was con- sidering running for U.S. Senate in Kansas. Many in Kansas perceive his appear- ances in the state to be a de facto cam- paign effort,” wrote Menendez. STATEDEPARTMENT/RONPRZYSUCHA News reports have said Secretary Pompeo has been mulling a U.S. Senate run, Reuters reported on Oct. 29. Senator Menendez cited a Wall Street Journal article on Oct. 26 reporting that Secre - tary Pompeo met with Charles Koch, a top financial contributor to his previous political campaigns. “The events in Kansas were aimed largely at promoting the president’s ‘Pledge to American Workers,’ which has no discernible relation to the Department of State,” Senator Menendez wrote. Secretary Pompeo called Menendez’s letter “just all silliness” in an interview with the Mid-America Network on Nov. 1. Bill Introduced to Limit Political Ambassador Appointees A new bill proposed by Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) would limit the number of “political appointee” (non-career) ambas- sadors. The Strengthening Traditional American Diplomacy (STAND) Act would require 70 percent of those nominated by presidents to come from the career For- eign Service and Civil Service ranks. “Under this administration, a record number of ambassador positions have been filled by political appointees,” says Rep. Bera, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and I’d like to open this evening with a breathless update on how some obscure diplomat you’ve never heard of said something forgettable to an even more obscure Ukrainian government official about a topic that has literally nothing to do with your life or the future of our country. Then we are going to drone on about this non-story for the entire hour tonight, and every night this week, hoping that by sheer volume and repetition, we can give it the illusion of relevance. I hope you find it edifying. —Tucker Carlson, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Nov. 5, 2019. Contemporary Quote