Rex Tillerson’s State Department slipped further into disarray this week, following the departure of a figure brought in to overhaul the department amid growing tensions within the Trump administration.
Maliz Beams, who was brought on as Counselor to the Department of State in August, resigned her position after only three months, according to officials. The department confirmed Beams’ departure on Monday.
“Beams is stepping away from her role here at the Department of State and is returning to her home in Boston,” a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “Effective immediately, [Tillerson’s deputy chief of staff] Christine Ciccone will step in to lead the redesign effort and manage its daily activities.”
Beams’ departure is more bad news for the department, which has suffered a number of exits in recent months. Beams, who has an extensive private sector background in business and finance and previously served as CEO of Voya Financial (formerly ING US), was brought in to lead a massive redesign effort championed by Tillerson. Trump’s budget calls for a $10.1 billion reduction in State Department spending, a controversial move that could cost 2,300 people their jobs. Beams reportedly clashed with Tillerson over the effort.
But don't think that Rex Tillerson does not have a plan for how to deal with world crises with only a skeleton crew, because he does.
The aforementioned "wishful thinking."
Courtesy of The Guardian:
Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s proposal to slash the state department and foreign aid budget is in part based on an expectation it will be able to resolve some of the global conflicts that have been absorbing costly diplomatic and humanitarian support.
But in a vivid display of the most urgent diplomatic challenge facing the US, Tillerson was speaking as North Korea carried out a new ballistic missile test – the first since it fired a missile over Japan in mid-September.
The secretary of state presented this rationale for the budget cut at a time when he is under fire from former US diplomats for gutting his state department amid multiple crises around the world – an allegation Tillerson denied.
I think it is overwhelmingly obvious at this point that Tillerson, like many Trump appointees, was appointed to destroy the very agencies they were supposed to lead.
Tillerson seems particularly adept in that regard.
Of course the problem with that is that it leaves the American people incredibly vulnerable.
All across the board we are suffering a crisis of leadership, and every day the danger to average citizens rises just that much higher.
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