House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Meeks Issues Statement on 1-Year Anniversary of State Department RIFs

Washington, D.C. - Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today issued a statement on the 1-year anniversary of the Trump administration's firing of 1,350 civil and foreign service employees without cause:

"One year ago today, the Trump administration fired 1,350 dedicated civil and foreign service employees without justification, marking the single greatest brain-drain from the State Department in modern history. A year later, Congress has still not been provided any straight answers. The Administration has failed to tell Congress what skills it lost, what cost to the taxpayer of rebuilding those skills will be, and has only offered contradictory excuses about why these experts were let go. Years of training, institutional expertise, and security clearances, paid for by taxpayers, were thrown away overnight, and a year later the Administration still has not provided a clear explanation why."

"That there has to date been no proper oversight, transparency or accounting of these arbitrary and self-defeating firings is unacceptable, and Democrats will continue to press for answers. These public servants deserved far better than the reckless purge the Trump administration carried out, and America is less safe today because of it."