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Ed Webb

New Bill to Curb Political Ambassadors Arrives Amid Trump Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...t-impeachment-inquiry-congress

US USA patronage diplomacy foreignpolicy Trump

shared by Ed Webb on 31 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, unveiled a bill on Wednesday that would require 70 percent of ambassadors to come from the professional ranks of the State Department. 
  • The bill is called the Strengthening Traditional American Diplomacy, or STAND Act. It comes as lawmakers place new scrutiny on the Trump administration’s approach to diplomacy amid the impeachment probe, which has pulled back the curtain on the president’s handling of U.S. foreign policy and dragged career diplomats into closed-door depositions where they have raised concerns over the president and his inner circle’s handling of policy on Ukraine.
  • Other congressional aides and experts are skeptical the bill would gain traction in the Republican-controlled Senate, and they are wary of legal questions it could raise given the president’s wide authority to nominate who he wants for senior posts across the administration. 
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  • Past presidents have traditionally kept a ratio of about two-thirds career diplomats to one-third political appointees as ambassadors
  • Political appointees have traditionally been sent to developed countries in Europe and cushier posts, such as Luxembourg, the Bahamas, or Portugal
  • Trump has veered away from the tradition: 45 percent of the ambassadors he has appointed are political appointees, some of whom are deep-pocketed campaign donors or in other circles close to the president with controversial backgrounds and no prior diplomatic experience.
  • Trump has followed the tradition of past presidents—both Democrats and Republicans—by appointing people who bankrolled his presidential campaign and inauguration committee as ambassadors to foreign countries, even when they have no prior diplomatic experience.
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