EXCLUSIVE — State Department documents and sources spoken to by the Washington Examiner indicate that the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security continues to authorize heavy expenditures on extravagant foreign trips involving large employee delegations. The latest such trip occurred during the current government shutdown, which has seen heavy workforce furloughs.
The documents appear to undermine pledges by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ensure greater government efficiency. The State Department documents show that 10 department employees recently attended the International Technical Security conference in Wellington, New Zealand. The INTSEC conference is a classified technical security conference held every 18 months involving members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).
The trip was led by Deputy Assistant Secretary Ronald Stuart of the Diplomatic Security Service’s countermeasures directorate (DSS is the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s subordinate field agency). As the Washington Examiner has extensively reported, DSS is notorious in the federal law enforcement community for the perception of its overworked field personnel and poor leadership. As the Washington Examiner also previously reported, in February, after the Trump administration took office, Stuart led a similar trip to Sydney, Australia, which cost the government an estimated $200,000.
The documents show that just two of the Wellington trip’s participants accrued more than $30,000 in government expenses. Stuart received approval for $18,000 in government expenses to cover an Oct. 10-Oct. 19 trip to New Zealand, including business class flights. Samuel Jackson, a division director for DSS’s countermeasures program, had $12,510 in expenses approved to cover an Oct. 11-Oct. 18 trip, including business class flights. Other high-ranking officials also attended the conference, including Gharun Lacy, the DSS deputy assistant secretary for cyber and technology security. Considering the number of personnel on the trip, it is likely that the total cost approached or exceeded $100,000.
When asked by the Washington Examiner how the trip could be justified alongside new rules introduced by Rubio to reduce unnecessary expenditures, the State Department spokesperson responded, “This travel was approved because it dealt with priorities related to the technical, physical, and cybersecurity challenges facing our posts around the world. Due to the classified nature of the training, in-session attendance was necessary. The Department abided by all relevant statutes and regulations.”
This explanation seems untenable.
The State Department has communications systems that would have allowed for classified video calls from Washington, D.C., into the conference. And as one source with direct knowledge of the situation explained to the Washington Examiner, “There’s no way that 10 people needed to go. It’s a classic example of hiding behind ‘classified mission.’ During the furlough, other cheaper, more legitimate, pre-authorized, and prefunded travel was canceled by Bureau of Diplomatic Security leadership.”
Referencing a Facebook post by Lacy celebrating the conference, the source added, “If it was so classified, why was Lacy able to post public photos and a general idea of the conference?”
There is extensive dismay among DSS line agents and technical security professionals in the field over expenditures such as these. Six separate sources with direct knowledge of DSS appropriations and operations have told the Washington Examiner that field personnel believe the Bureau of Diplomatic Security prioritizes unnecessary, luxury travel for top leaders to the neglect of funding for even critical mission requirements.
One source added that Lacy and Stuart have especially poor reputations among State Department employee victims of the so-called Anomalous Health Incidents/Havana Syndrome. (As the Washington Examiner has reported, but most U.S. intelligence agencies, including that of the State Department, deny, there is compelling evidence to suggest that a significant number of these incidents are the result of pulsed-microwave attacks by elements of the Russian intelligence services.)
Their cost-cutting claims to the contrary, Rubio and the Trump administration appear content to allow career State Department leaders to carry on as usual.
