State Department inspector general slams smear campaign against employee

Washington Post logoThe State Department’s inspector general rebuked a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday, saying the aide had played a role in reassigning a staffer suspected of being disloyal to the Trump administration.

The inspector general’s report recommended that Pompeo consider disciplining Brian Hook, the point man for Iran policy. The report, however, covers Hook’s previous tenure as head of an in-house think tank known as the Policy Planning Office, located on the department’s storied seventh floor near the secretary’s office.

The report cited a chain of emails among senior officials, including Hook, and prominent conservatives, following an article in the Conservative Review that characterized a staffer in the office as a “trusted Obama aide” who had “burrowed” into the State Department during the Trump administration. She was dismissed from Hook’s staff three months early, a decision the inspector general concluded was based not on merit but on improper, inappropriate and false perceptions of her political opinions, association with the previous administration and her national origin.

View the complete November 14 article by Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.