Why Career Diplomats Are Becoming Campaign Advisers

Battered by haphazard decisions and neglect, the State Department has seen a mass exodus of diplomats during the Trump administration. Now some former diplomats are so worried about what another Trump term would mean—further erosion of alliances, more loss of credibility with friends and foes alike—that they are for the first time taking their services and experience to 2020 candidates, hoping to stop him.

But whom to pick?

A former diplomat concerned about immediately working to repair relationships with foreign counterparts, and returning to “business as usual” American diplomacy, might favor Joe Biden.

Others who think that presidential war powers should be reined in, and that the U.S. should take a harder-line approach toward traditional allies such as Saudi Arabia, might instead choose Elizabeth Warren as their favorite candidate.

And if they are hoping to split the difference, diplomats might gravitate toward Pete Buttigieg.

Diplomats are donating to, advising, and campaigning for these candidates despite their concern that they’ll be further vilified by Trump staffers, some of whom have characterized government employees who disagree with the administration’s policies as , rather than apolitical career civil-service and Foreign Service officials. Indeed, even some in the diplomatic community are worried about the precedent it sets when so many former