to face too much opposition from the White House or Senate. One of Brechbuhl's initiatives was to shepherd the creation of an "ethos" statement that would help unify an understaffed department with morale issues. Brechbuhl explained the value of the ethos statement: "The ultimate value, we believe, is the team will be far more cohesive. The left hand will understand the right hand.” In October 2019 Brechbuhl led a U.S. delegation to Greenland and Denmark that included officials from the United States National Security Council and the Pentagon with the purpose of discussing “areas of current and future cooperation”. Denmark's minister of foreign affairs, Jeppe Kofod, participated. State Department officials did note whether the trip would address President Donald Trump's earlier interest in the U.S. buying Greenland and the response of Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that the idea was "absurd." The U.S. has a longstanding defense agreement with Denmark giving the U.S. almost unlimited rights in Greenland at Thule Air Base, the US Armed Forces' northernmost installation. On March 3, 2020, Brechbuhl took on the role of acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, as designated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Brechbuhl has been involved in a controversy regarding mistreatment of State Department employees that was ultimately investigated by Office of the Inspector General of the Department of State. Under federal human resources regulations, career employees at the State Department must be evaluated and managed on the basis of merit. Discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or perceived political beliefs is prohibited. (Political appointees, however, may be selected for their views regarding administration policy.) When an employee who had been inaccurately attacked in a conservative news outlet, her manager, political appointee Brian Hook, refused to help her clear up the inaccurate information and instead removed her from her role. The OIG noted that Brian Hook had sent an email to himself commenting on various career employees with labels such as “leaker,” “troublemaker,” and “turncoat.” While Brechbuhl disputed the report's findings related to the employee's mistreatment, stating that Hook acted appropriately in creating his own team, the OIG concluded that the career employee had been unfairly targeted by Trump administration appointees, and recommended that the State Department should discipline staff members and officials who violated non-discrimination policies. In response, Brechbuhl noted that there is now a department requirement for all political appointees to receive instruction related to required