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When senior State Department officials tried to cut agents with “the biggest reorganization since the Cold War,” they couldn’t get all employees to their employees — for months, they say.
“It took me three months to get a list of people who actually work in the building,” a State Department official told reporters during a briefing at Foggy Bottom on Monday, defending the cuts on jobs that the detractor allegedly undermined diplomacy.
“They couldn’t tell you how many people worked here,” the official said. “As taxpayers, as civil servants, it’s scary to think that we don’t even know how many employees we have. This is the National Security Agency. You know. Who are these people?”
The reorganization will create a division with approximately 3,000 less employees. Approximately half of them received voluntary acquisitions, while the other half received a power reduction (RIF) notice.
Rubio is a massive state reorganization setup set up to eliminate more than 300 offices
Dismissed State Department employees will carry personal belongings from the fog bottom building on July 11, 2025, after receiving a layoff notification as part of the Trump administration’s restructuring plan. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The closest advisor to Secretary of State Marco Rubio has evaluated more than 700 national offices within the Department of State and submitted RIF (compulsory) notices to employees to employees who have been found to be “duplicate” or “inefficient.”
Authorities say the idea is to “put up to 12 clearances on any paper,” meaning that the document will go through 12 tiers of approval instead.
The department has dozens of different offices dealing with human resources, and when new employees were hired, they were accepting faxed RECORDS on past work with other agencies.
“It’s weird that so many important diplomacy and departments that entrust the national security functions to a budget of over $50 billion is doing that way,” the official said.
The investigation found issues with three separate offices dealing with sanctions, two handling arm controls.
The laid back State Department employees comfort each other outside their fog bottom headquarters as onlookers praise their services. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“Some of these regional offices within this kind of functional civil liberties, civil society, Democracy and Labor Department, population, population, refugees and immigration, each had their own regional offices in addition to rural desks, regional offices and construction,” the official said. “All independent bureaus and offices had their own executive directors, their own HR departments, their own payments. They paid like over 60 offices.”
Rubio’s team maintains cutting edge focused on the non-essential bureaucracy, while maintaining frontline diplomacy. The Supreme Court’s ruling in late June resumed the doors of public federal layoffs after lower courts blocked cuts. The reorganization is moving forward, but legal challenges from the union are pending.
Officials have shut down the “resident diplomat” program.
“State Department employees are paid to hang out in Georgetown and are like recruiting for foreign services,” one official said, “without any kind of metric or accountability.”
They didn’t touch rural desks that focused specifically on countries like Iran or China, and they didn’t fire anyone from passport services or diplomatic security. They did not cut down embassies or foreign posts.
“We’ve been exposed to people doing something like a kind of futile feature or place that found natural efficiency when combining two offices.”
White House proposal axes un, nato fund and half the state department budget
Rubio led the US State Department’s reorganization in 2025, cutting 3,000 positions. (Anna Money Maker/Getty Images)
Critics warn that diplomatic corps cuts could undermine our existence all over the world and give us soft power to China.
“The Climate Change Office is not fighting China,” the official replied.
The department also resettled Afghan refugees trying to flee Taliban control and closed offices that culminated the population, refugees and immigration departments.
“The office was not doing work that was countering China or serving the national interest,” the official said. “China has overtaken the US in many of these countries, so I argue that growth at the State Department is not consistent with the growth of the outcomes of American taxpayers.”
Another example speaks of the Gulf Foreign Minister complaining that Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Bureau continued to force unions of foreign workers under the Biden administration.
“This created a huge diplomatic tension with them,” the official said. “The Foreign Minister is pleased and would like to work with us on a common prosperity and trade agreement that they have not tried to use in other countries about their household chores.”
Still, this process sparked obvious tensions within the department. Employees gathered in tears in the fog lobby to say goodbye.
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Signs containing messages such as “Resist Fascism” and “You shocked it” were taped throughout the department.
A group of more than 130 former senior officials, including former national security adviser Susan Rice, have signed an open letter expressing concern that deep staff cuts could endanger the effectiveness of US foreign policy.
Some people seized the results of the State Department and foreign aid equipment. Atlantic reports show that the Trump administration has given orders to burn 500 tons of emergency food purchased during the Biden administration as aid distributed to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“It’s a bit sad to see people behave like that. I think they’re interested in following the president and supporting their vows to listen to people’s orders,” one source said.
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