HuffPost: "Ambassador’s Sudden Exit Amid Deportation Fight Was Totally Normal, State Dept. Says"
Updated: Jan 29, 2019
The State Department is urging its staff to dispute an outspoken former ambassador’s claim that he was abruptly ordered to vacate his post in the midst of a disagreement over President Donald Trump’s effort to deport thousands of Vietnam War refugees who had lived in the U.S. for decades.
A press guidance, which was distributed by the Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and obtained by HuffPost, tells diplomats to portray Ted Osius’ departure from his post as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam as in line with departmental protocol ― and not as sudden and potentially politically motivated.
Osius’ exit from Vietnam last year was hasty, and he called it “unnecessarily humiliating.”