https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/state-department-trump/517965/

The State of Trump's State Department

Anxiety and listless days as a foreign-policy bureaucracy confronts the possibility of radical change

• Julia Ioffe
• March 1, 2017 | The Atlantic

The flags in the lobby of the State Department stood bathed in sunlight and silence on a recent afternoon. “It’s normally so busy here,” marveled a State Department staffer as we stood watching the emptiness. “People are usually coming in for meetings, there’s lots of people, and now it’s so quiet.” The action at Foggy Bottom has instead moved to the State Department cafeteria where, in the absence of work, people linger over countless coffees with colleagues. (“The cafeteria is so crowded all day,” a mid-level State Department officer said, adding that it was a very unusual sight. “No one’s doing anything.”) As the staffer and I walked among the tables and chairs, people with badges chatted over coffee; one was reading his Kindle.
“It just feels empty,” a recently departed senior State official told me.mhttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/state-department-trump/517965/