Reuters reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged tighter controls over policy work at the State Department, while accounts differ over the departure of policy chief Jeremy Lewin.
Reuters based its account on four people familiar with the gathering. They placed it shortly before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, though the report supplied no exact date or complete attendee list. The sources said many of the State Department’s assistant secretaries attended; Reuters put the number of those senior posts at about two dozen. According to Reuters, major decisions were to go to Rubio or Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau for approval, and Rubio’s office had to approve all trips abroad by political staff. The department declined to comment. EconoTimes previously covered the reported approval process.
The reported meeting came after Rubio had sent staff a department-wide reminder about conflicts of interest. The Washington Post said it obtained the message, in which Rubio wrote, “I expect employees to avoid conflicts of interest in our work.” A State Department official told the newspaper the memo had been in preparation for weeks. Reuters later reported Rubio attributed its delay to bureaucracy and said it was not prompted by Kimberly Guilfoyle’s departure.
The Associated Press reported that on Oct. 13 the White House sought Guilfoyle’s resignation from her post as U.S. ambassador to Greece, following media allegations of misconduct. Guilfoyle denied the allegations.
In its report, Reuters cited three people who described concerns that Lewin had taken on work beyond his area without adequate coordination. Those sources did not associate his departure with ethical misconduct. Lewin told Reuters, “The suggestion that I was fired is false,” and said his decision had been planned weeks earlier, with no connection to the meeting or department policy. A State Department official described the move as mutually agreed.
