After the firing of the State Department’s inspector general, many in the media rushed to determine what he might have been investigating. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia? Sending a political appointee to pick up dry cleaning? Hosting lavish, off-the-record dinners? That has gotten the most traction in the press but seems a strange criticism for three reasons. First, that is what U.S. Embassies in Europe and Asia do all the time, and it’s hardly a surprise that the State Department would. Second, creative diplomacy requires strategies that transcend talk: commerce, technology, culture all play important roles. And third is the usual media hypocrisy.
While the public is yet to find out the reason for the inspector general’s firing, the subsequent leaks of his supposed investigations should raise real concerns. Still, if the press wants to look for waste at the State Department, there is no shortage of examples.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for example, set her travel itinerary not based on U.S. diplomatic or security interests, but rather on setting records for travel and countries visited.
Senior advisor Philippe Reines wrote to Clinton in 2012: “With 7ish months left, plenty of time to run up the score on total countries. 110 is a reasonable goal. Here are the 94 countries left to choose from (asterisks appear next to countries you visited prior to becoming SecState, but not since – so they would count).”
The media speculate that Pompeo’s discussions with historians, business leaders, and cultural leaders are irrelevant. They did not complain, however, when Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken appeared on Sesame Street.
Secretary of State John Kerry provides the ultimate example of waste, fraud, and abuse. On Nov. 4, 2016, Kerry became the first secretary of state to visit the South Pole. State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “It’s a chance firsthand to see what’s going on with climate change research.”
Here’s the problem. The secretary of state is the nation’s chief diplomat. Diplomats engage with their foreign counterparts (or, in Blinken’s case, puppets). They meet other diplomats. There are no diplomats in Antarctica, however, nor are U.S. personnel and research stations in Antarctica under the aegis of the State Department. The National Science Foundation and the U.S. Antarctic Program administers the sites Kerry visited.
In reality, Kerry (and a large delegation of his closest aides) were tourists. The Washington Post detailed his experience: He “took helicopter tours of spectacular features like the McMurdo Dry valleys. … Kerry saw Blood Falls, a bizarre glacier that looks reddish because of the combination of iron and very saline water spilling out of it. … He visited a famous hut where Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, lived in 1908. He snapped a photo of an Adelie penguin.”
For comparison as to what this cost taxpayers, consider the cost of the trip if commercially booked, and the expense quite quickly grows into the millions of dollars. If Kerry’s purpose was really to learn about climate change, he might instead have Skyped the scientists at a cost of zero, or perhaps crossed the Potomac River to visit the National Science Foundation’s headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, for a briefing.
It is not too late to audit the internal State Department mechanisms that greenlighted rather than raised red flags about such a boondoggle. Did the officials who approved Kerry’s travel accompany him on the trip? Was the timing at the twilight of the administration meant as a reward for loyal aides? The media are right that the State Department should crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse. For that reason alone, it appears that the time is right to start the process to recoup the expense billed to taxpayers of Kerry and his aides’ junket to the South Pole.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
