Two top officials in the State Department announced they would be leaving their posts last week, according to a Sunday Foreign Policy report.
Tracey Ann Jacobson, a career diplomat currently who leads the Bureau for International Organization Affairs, told her staff on Friday that she would be retiring early in October, according to Foreign Policy. William Rivington Brownfield, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs also said Friday that he would leave his post by the end of September, per Foreign Policy. A spokesperson for the State Department told Foreign Policy that Brownfield had not announced his retirement, however.
The departures of top State Department officials comes amid signs that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s position in the State Department could be in trouble. Axios reported Sunday that Trump is increasingly frustrated with Tillerson.
And Tillerson on Sunday distanced himself from Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. The secretary of state said that the President “speaks for himself” when asked about Trump’s values and his failure to condemn white nationalists.
