UNITED STATES
The Inspector General (IG) of the United States Department of State has ruled that Department heads violated Public Service laws in reassigning at least one employee due to perceptions about her ethnicity and political views.
The watchdog reviewed five potential cases of unlawful treatment of Public Service employees, verifying illegal conduct in one case and saying it did not receive enough information from State to make a determination in two others.
The IG found no evidence of wrongdoing in the remaining cases.
The Inspector General has been probing allegations of political targeting and other prohibited personnel practices since January 2018.
The new report follows another released in August that substantiated several instances of high-level State officials systematically targeting career staffers, based on work they carried out during the Administration of former President Barack Obama.
The latest case involves career employee, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh (pictured), who worked in the Office of Policy Planning. An inaccurate article by a conservative outlet attacked her for her work during the Obama Administration.
Several outsiders sent the story to top aides of then Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, including liaisons to the White House.
In one email, White House Liaison to State, Julia Haller noted Ms Nowrouzzadeh’s Iranian heritage and said “my understanding is she cried when the President won the election.”
Ms Nowrouzzadeh said she had she begun working for State during the George W. Bush Administration and “adapted my work to the policy priorities of every Administration I worked for”.
State eventually ended Ms Nowrouzzadeh’s detail 10 weeks early, sending her back to her position in the Near East Affairs Bureau.
The IG noted the Department has discretion to end details, but that flexibility was not “unbounded.”
His investigations found no evidence that anyone at State involved in ending Ms Nowrouzzadeh’s detail actually examined her fitness for the job or whether she was unwilling to implement Department policy.
Instead, the IG said, her “perceived political opinions, perceived association with former Administrations, and her perceived national origin played at least some role” in the decision to end her detail and was therefore improper.
The Department responded that current Secretary, Mike Pompeo “will consider whether disciplinary action is appropriate”, though Mr Pompeo disagreed that any laws were broken.
Washington, 16 November 2019
