April 20 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday dismissed as a “hoax” a draft Trump executive order that circulated over the weekend and would gut the U.S. State Department.
“This is fake news. The @nytimes falls victim to another hoax,” Rubio said on social media with a link to an article from The New York Times, which first reported news of the draft order. The document had also been viewed by Bloomberg and Politico.
The draft order was reported to propose eliminating most of the State Department’s operations in Africa, shrink its presence in Canada and cut offices at home that address issues related to climate change, refugees and human rights.
Changes would be made by Oct. 1, if implemented. Currently, the State Department employs some 13,000 members of the Foreign Service, 11,000 Civil Service employees, and 45,000 locally employed staff at more than 270 diplomatic missions worldwide.
It was not immediately clear how many people and offices would be cut under the draft order.
Despite Rubio’s claim, officials who spoke with the news outlets said that the draft order had been circulated among American diplomats worldwide who feared that the cuts would overhaul how the United States conducts its foreign service.
Officials said the administration was planning to announce the reorganization plans as soon as Tuesday, while Politico reported that even if the document is fake, its rapid circulation demonstrates how fearful career diplomats are of the Trump administration.
“Bonkers crazypants,” one diplomat said of the draft to Politico.
In their analyses and reporting, the newspapers noted that the draft order did not follow the standard format of a Trump executive order while some employees doubted in comments online that the order could be implemented.
“I suspect this is being leaked as a red herring designed to make us grateful for a more modest but still unpopular reorganization,” one user wrote in the Reddit group r/foreignservice.
“It will be basically immediately challenged and enjoined, and then ‘implementation’ will be dragged out until Trump is voted out.”
The State Department cuts would also reportedly target educational programs including the famed Fulbright scholarship, which sends students around the world for work and study, and fellowships associated with Howard University, a historically Black institution.