[Cooper:] Well, there are big shoes now to fill at the State Department, with President Trump in, four top management officials are out. Two senior administration officials said the State Department brass were told that their services were no longer needed. This is unusual and that the White House usually asks career officials, not political appointees, career officials to stay on for a few months and leaves a gaping hole in State Department management, with the combine 150 years of experience between the officials. Our Elise Labott joins me now with more. So, who are these four senior State Department officials that were asked to leave and what do they do there?
[Elise Labott, Cnn Global Affairs Correspondent:] Well, Anderson, one of the names you might recognize, undersecretary of management, Patrick Kennedy, a longtime serving top official at the State Department who's been embroiled in the Benghazi controversy, he was in charge of management then, and also in charge of helping handle Secretary Clinton's e-mail when she was at the State Department real critics from Republicans about him. There's also the assistant secretary for administration, Joyce Anne Barr, the assistant secretary for consular affairs, her name is Michele Bond, another long serving official, and Ambassador Gentry Smith, who handled the Office of Foreign Admissions. That's embassies and consulates here in the United States. So, as you said, these are long-serving career officials, 150 combined years of institutional knowledge among them, and it does leave a gaping hole in the management department of the State Department as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, he's not been confirmed yet, but he's expected to be next week. I mean, these bureaus have deputies, but it really does leave a lot of institutional knowledge out the door as this new secretary comes in.
[Cooper:] I mean, the State Department says they have new people who could fill the slots. How unusual is it for an incoming administration to go after staffers without having a replacement lined up?
[Labott:] It's pretty unusual. I mean, generally, these are career appointees, some of them have served during since the Nixon administration. So, clearly, they've served in Republican and Democratic administrations. Usually, they say, listen, stay on for a few months until your successor is confirmed. Case in point, Patrick Kennedy, when the Bush administration came in, he was assistant secretary for administration and they asked him to stay on until his successor was confirmed and that was six months. And it's not just the management department. There are other officials across the State Department that were told their services were no longer needed. For instance, the assistant secretary and acting undersecretary for arms control, Tom Countryman, was on his way to a conference in Rome when he was told to turn around, your services are no longer required. So, it's pretty clear that the Trump administration wants to start fresh. The problem is all this, you know, decades and decades of institutional knowledge walking out the door, they're going to be hard-pressed to find those kind of officials that know the inner workings of the State Department the way these people do, Anderson.
[Cooper:] All right. Elise Labott, thanks very much. Back with the panel. Christiane, this does get to a point you raised in our last segment about Mexico, essentially just the pace of change and again, this is what folks voted for Trump for but it's unlike anything I think we've seen in quite a long time.
[Amanpour:] Yes. I mean, absolutely. There's a huge pace of change, for want of a better word. I mean, some of the people that Elise is talking about, I understand, were going to retire anyway, they were older. Some have to do it in terms of procedure in terms of incoming and outgoing administrations. Some of them I'm told simply, you know, left because they didn't want to be part of the incoming administration. So, there is a whole a mixture of reasons for this. But the bigger picture is, you know, when are will all the people get in to actually govern? And I'm not the one asking this question. Foreign leaders, foreign, you know, interlocutors and things. I've heard from you know, different European capitals that, you know, they've come over here, haven't had a sense of who their partners are. Let's just take a for instance today, I was interviewing Saeb Areikat and the chief Palestinian negotiator, and the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. about the whole idea, is the embassy going to move, what's it going to mean? I mean, Areikat said that the Palestinians haven't had their letters responded to or anything responded to in terms of questions. That might be political but it might be administrative. We just don't know.
[Lewis:] Yes. I think one of the untold stories was hinted at just there is how long it takes to get some of these people confirmed. I mean, it could be six or more months before some of these staff positions are confirmed and in place. It just seems you know, look, I totally understand Donald Trump, there is an argument to be made about sort of cleaning house, getting people who have frankly haven't been that effective, or just don't share your philosophy, getting them out, bringing in your team. But it takes so long to staff up and to sort of get all of your people in place. And that strikes me as maybe that's something we need to focus on is expediting these things.
[Lord:] I remember working in the Bush 41 administration for Jack Kemp. And we got the letter that said, thanks, be out by January 20th at noon. We held a party with Secretary Kemp the day before, we took the half day off, and that was it. But those were the political people. One of the problems here in this town that has been there increasingly is are the career folks. Lots of them belong to union, political unions, they donate money, et cetera, and the money goes heavily to Democrats. I don't care. God bless their First Amendment rights. What I'm suggesting is the culture in these bureaucracies is left-leaning. And so, when you get a Republican president like Donald Trump who comes in, not to mention somebody who's been such an outsider, they're going to want to flush the system out. And they should. One, so they have career people in there who are representing their point of view, and two, so that things get done here and they get fresh blood in there. That's
[Powers:] Well, are you you're saying get rid of career people who they think don't have their political view? Because I don't think that's
[Lord:] Because the career people are supposed to represent
[Powers:] But what are you talking about? Career people have protected positions. They've been there their entire lives and they're actually not and they're not all partisans, but I mean, this is your breaking news here, if you think that you're saying the Trump administration is going in and purge career people out of the administration?
[Lord:] Well, this is what we're seeing here.
[Powers:] These are political appointees, aren't they?
[Lord:] These were career people, were they not?
[Lewis:] Some of them.
[Cooper:] My understanding.
[Powers:] Yes. But if leaving on their own accord, that's not the same thing.
[Lord:] They submit their letters of resignation.
[Powers:] Political appointees submit their letters of resignation. But career people are not obliged to submit.
[Lord:] Well, these folks did.
[Cooper:] Let me bring in Elise. Elise Labott, are these all career people?
[Labott:] These are all career people who have been in the administration for decades. The process is when you're in a confirmable position, that the president appoints you to, you are required by law to submit your resignation. Now, you'll remember a few weeks back, all of the political ambassadors submitted their resignations and they were all told, "Yes, thank you, be out by January 20th." Some of them usually ask to stay on for a couple of weeks. Some of them have kids in school. They were all told, "No, we'd really like you out by January 20th." Now, on a political realm, that's certainly expected. But with the career officials even though they're required to submit their resignation, they're serving both most of them have served several Democratic and several Republican administrations. So, the question is, do they want to just purge and start fresh? They're not going to be able to fill every position with new people. These are as Kristen said, these are protected positions and also, they have a lot of institutional knowledge. So, it is kind of rare that they would be asked all to leave in this way and I have to respectfully disagree with Jeffrey. I understand what you're saying about how a lot of these officials perhaps lean left, but these are, you know, loyal to the department that they serve. Really, they kind of go with the flow with any administration.
[Lord:] Therein lies the difference. I mean, I think they don't go this whole controversy with we were talking about the other night with the websites or whatever where the National Park Service and all this sort of thing, that epitomizes what the problem is. Whether it doesn't matter. It could be the FBI. It could be the EPA. It could be the Justice Department, what have you. You have these folks in this culture, for lack of a better term, a culture of liberalism within the department, that's what they do.
[Lewis:] Everybody says they want change and their politicians come to Washington and then they become part of the system and they become like all the other politicians. And one way to make sure that happens is to have bureaucrats who slow down the works. Donald Trump is a revolutionary candidate and he wants to do some big things. Those may be good things, those may be bad things, but the way to strangle the baby in the crib and to prevent that from happening is to have people and you know, personnel is policy and if you have people in key positions who are not implementing your vision, then you're not going to be able to accomplish much.
[Cooper:] I'm not sure strangling the baby in the crib is the greatest Let's take a pause. We're going to have more with the panel ahead. President Trump today was expected to launch an investigation into voter fraud after he made claims, unproven ones, that millions of fraudulent votes were cast against him. So, why was the announcement actually delayed? That is next.