President Donald Trump has made another executive decision regarding the fate of federal appointees that they’re not going to like.
Trump dismissed all members of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation last month, according to an email notification sent to the committee members. The committee, which is intended to be nonpartisan, advises on the public release and accuracy of U.S. diplomatic records.
“On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation is terminated effective immediately,” White House liaison to the State Department Cate Dillon wrote in one of the dismissal emails, the Washington Post reported.
No explanation was provided by Dillon, according to the outlet. However, after former committee member and Canadian-American historian Timothy Naftali announced his dismissal on X, some conservative critics seized on his past statements, citing them as evidence of what they viewed as anti-Trump and anti-American bias.
The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation advises the State Department on the publication of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, the official documentary record of U.S. foreign policy, according to the Office of the Historian.
Naftali isn’t the only former member facing scrutiny over alleged anti-Trump and anti-American bias. Committee Chairman James Goldgeier, a professor at American University’s School of International Service, has also drawn similar criticism. Goldgeier was particularly outspoken against Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
“It wasn’t enough for Trump to kill Americans through his incompetence and disinterest in dealing with the pandemic,” he posted to X on July 20, 2020. “Now he’s got DHS attacking peaceful Americans to distract from his failure to care about the pandemic. It’s startling that he has enablers in this effort.”
