John Sullivan has higher ambitions. The deputy US Secretary of State was supposed to inherit his boss Mike Pompeo. But then President Donald Trump nominated him as the new ambassador to Russia.
On Wednesday, Sullivan faced the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which has to approve the staff. The Ukrainian affair came up promptly: what did he know about it?
Sullivan squirmed, eventually admitting that asking a foreign government to "investigate a political rival," as Trump said, "is not consistent with our values." Also burdened Sullivan the private prosecutor Trumps, Rudy Giuliani, who plays a major role in the affair.
Sullivan's appearance was a taste of what's to come. So far, the witnesses in the Ukraine affair, many of them former or still acting field staff, say behind closed doors. But this Thursday, Democrats want to launch public hearings that could lead to Trump's impeachment.
The tortured answers of Sullivan give an idea of how much the affair has torn the State Department - which now slowly leads to the apparatus resisting or at least no longer tacitly participating. It seems like a rebellion against the systematic decline of US diplomacy under Trump, who controls the foreign and security policy via Twitter, has cooled down experienced officials and prefers to send his private henchmen around the world.
But now the diplomats are back.
1. The orphaned ministry
Pompeo is a gentleman without a house. The State Department has bled out under Trump. The budget is to be cut by a quarter, already now every fourth political post, which must be confirmed by the Senate, vacant. The number of career officials has also shrunk, more and more are chipping because the pressure of loyalty is growing. Recently, GAO warned that "chronic" vacancies threaten not only foreign policy initiatives but national security as well.
"No one knows how many have left," ex-consular officer Beth Milton wrote in The New York Times. Her dismissal in August Milton justified with Trump's "worldview", which is "of narrow-mindedness, fear and small-minded chauvinism" was: "How can one still defend that abroad?"
Trump is probably right: he steers the US foreign policy increasingly centrally - from the White House, via Twitter and, as most recently in the withdrawal of troops from northern Syria, mostly without consultation with the experts. "Our only remaining options are soldiers or sanctions," complains Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee. "Our foreign policy toolbox has become obsolete."
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2. The donor-friendly ambassadors
Particularly affected are the US embassies - not only in the Middle East, where half a dozen agencies currently have no bosses. At present, the missions in Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Russia are also vacant - the post for which Trump has now nominated Deputy Minister Sullivan. Saudi Arabia has only since April again a US ambassador, the ex-General John Abizaid.
According to a study by law professor Ryan Scoville, only 60 percent of Trump's appointed ambassadors have international experience. 36 percent do not even speak the local language. More than half of them are said to have donated to Trump's campaign fund, on average, sums of almost $ 100,000.
- Billionaire Woody Johnson has donated more than $ 450,000 and has served as ambassador to London since 2017.
- The hotelier Gordon Sondland donated a million dollars for Trump's inauguration, became EU ambassador and as such is now deeply involved in the Ukrainian affair.
- Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was Trump's busy bankruptcy lawyer.
- Georgette Mosbacher, the ambassador in Warsaw, was previously known as the "eccentric saloon lady" ("Washington Post").
- David Cornstein, an ex-jeweler who is now the US Ambassador to Budapest, used his friendship with Trump to arrange a controversial visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the Oval Office.
The Germans best known: Richard Grenell, America's man in Berlin. He was previously press spokesman for the UN embassy and conservative columnist, now he interferes unrestrained in the federal and EU policies and was also Balkan envoy.
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3. The shadow diplomats
The disempowerment of former career diplomats creates a vacuum in which unwelcome ambassadors meet to force Trump's foreign policy and private interests abroad. Daughter Ivanka travels around the world as a goodwill ambassador, while her husband Jared Kushner became a Middle East envoy, although he openly acknowledges that he had no experience in the field. His Middle East peace plan has been fizzling so far.
How dangerous this parallel rail of shadow diplomacy is, is currently shown in the Ukraine. Trump's lawyer Giuliani, along with EU Ambassador Sondland - who is not responsible for Ukraine - apparently took off behind the scenes. So they made sure that Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine, stood in the way of Trump's plans as a non-political official.
But that takes its revenge now. Yovanovitch was one of the first of the army of ex-diplomats that Trump had charged Congress. Also her acting successor Bill Taylor said already and risked his job for it. Others took precautionary measures, such as the special Ukrainian representative Kurt Volker.
In an impeachment trial against Trump, they are likely to be leniency.
