Washington, D.C. -Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote a letter asking Chairman Trey Gowdy to issue a subpoena to compel the White House and State Department to produce documents they are withholding relating to alleged attempts by political officials to conduct a “cleaning" of career State Department employees they deemed not sufficiently “supportive" of President Trump’s agenda.
“The documents showed that in making staffing decisions, high-level political appointees of the Trump Administration characterized career State Department employees in derogatory terms, including as ‘a leaker and troublemaker’; ‘Turncoat’; ‘associated with previous policy’; and ‘Obama/Clinton loyalists not at all supportive of President Trump’s foreign policy agenda,’" Cummings wrote.
Cummings and Ranking Member Eliot Engel, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, wrote a letter on March 15, 2018, to request documents from the White House and State Department relating to disturbing documents provided by a whistleblower indicating that career State Department employees were apparently targeted for highly inappropriate attacks and retribution. The State Department has not denied any of the facts that have been alleged, but instead, on April 19, 2018, wrote that it had “referred the matter for review to the State Department’s Office of Inspector General and the permanent U.S. Office of Special Counsel."
