Secretary of State Tillerson May Exit Foggy Bottom Early – and Soon

Would Be Among Shortest-Serving SOS’s

After this last week of incredible turmoil and staff shakeups in the Trump White House, senior administration sources are telling NCRM that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is actively considering departing his post as early as late fall, after Thanksgiving.

That would make Tillerson one of the shortest-serving Secretaries of State, holding the office for about ten months.

According to one senior official speaking on the condition of remaining anonymous, Tillerson, the former Exxon-Mobil Chief Executive Officer, found President Trump’s incredible open public rebuke of U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions in a New York Times interview last week unprofessional. The official noted that Tillerson, who in his tenure at the helm of Exxon-Mobil valued loyalty and unity among senior staff and company employees as a much prized commodity, was disheartened by the president’s words. 

There has been ongoing conflict between Tillerson and the White House over foreign policy and in particular, State Department staffing of personnel including filling key and in most cases critical ambassadorial and consular posts. While Tillerson has made some choices to fill these posts, in many cases the administration has shut Tillerson out of the process according to one official.

Tllerson also had a “drama filled” confrontation with senior presidential aide Steven Miller over immigration concerns. In an article published last month by Politico, Miller pushed Tillerson and the State Department to be tougher on immigration and make changes to the programs they control, according to four people familiar with the conversation in the West Wing. 

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Politico went on to note that John Kelly, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was also present. Two of these people described the conversation as tense, though there wasn’t the “yelling” that Tillerson reserved for Johnny DeStefano, the head of presidential personnel, in a different argument at the White House the same day, according to one of these people.

Tillerson made it “quite clear” to Miller that he wanted autonomy over his department, one of these people said.

 

Brody Levesque is the Chief Political Correspondent for The New Civil Rights Movement.
You may contact Brody at Brody.Levesque@thenewcivilrightsmovement.com

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Image by U.S. Department of State via Flickr