President Barack Obama’s nominees for the ambassadorships to Norway, Argentina and Hungary may soon face a new hurdle to confirmation, as the professional association for US diplomats is set to decide in the coming days whether to publicly oppose their nominations – and others – as part of an escalating dispute in foreign policy circles over Obama’s nomination of political donors to embassy posts.

The three nominees – George Tsunis, Noah Mamet and Colleen Bell – combined raised more than $4.2m for Obama’s re-election campaign. Their appointments caused outrage last month after Senate hearings revealed they had little or no knowledge of their future postings.

A Guardian investigation in July revealed that the controversial practice of rewarding donors with plum foreign postings has accelerated under Obama, leaving the average “price” paid by his donors for ambassadorships in the last election cycle at nearly $2m.



Now the American Foreign Service Association, an independent professional body representing US diplomats, is considering making its first formal complaint about a US ambassadorial nominee’s suitability since 1992, in a sign that recent appointments may have proven the final straw for the diplomatic community.

Its president, Robert Silverman, told the Guardian on Tuesday that a board meeting would consider Obama’s three recent nominations on 5 March, although no final decision to formally condemn their appointments had yet been taken.



On Tuesday, the AFSA published a new set of guidelines it claims should be used to judge the suitability of candidates – including their knowledge of international affairs and management experience. “We are trying to effect change by having transparent guidelines that people can apply to all appointments, not just these three,” said Silverman.

Some people involved in the drafting of the guidelines are already making it clear that they regard Obama’s recent picks as falling short.

James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Turkey and Iraq who served as a deputy national security advisor to George W Bush and who was a member of the working group that produced AFSA’s new guidelines, told the Guardian that Obama donor and hotel executive George Tsunis did not, in his personal view, possess the necessary experience to lead the US embassy in Norway.

Tsunis was asked at his Senate confirmation hearing what he thought of Norway’s anti-immigrant Progress Party and told Senator John McCain: “You get some fringe elements that have a microphone and spew their hatred. … And I will tell you Norway has been very quick to denounce them.”

The Progress Party is a member of Norway’s ruling coalition government, a fact that brought a withering response from Senator McCain.

The new AFSA guidelines for those heading a US embassy do not favour career diplomats over political appointees, but do stress that those coming from outside government should have “experience in or with the host country or other suitable international experience, and knowledge of the host country culture and language or of other foreign cultures or languages.”

They add: “The actions and words of an ambassador have consequences for US national security and interests far beyond the individual country or organization to which he or she is accredited.

“It is essential, therefore, that ambassadors chosen to represent the president and lead our diplomatic missions possess the attributes, experience and skills to do so successfully.”

The White House insists there is not a direct causal link between the political donations of its ambassadors and their nominations by the president, but says such a relationship should not rule them out. “Being a donor to the president’s campaign does not guarantee you a job in the administration, but it does not prevent you from getting one,” said White House press secretary Jay Carney last week.

The Senate foreign relations committee has approved Tsunis’s appointment to Norway and Bell’s appointment to Hungary but has not yet voted on Noah Mamet’s nomination to Argentina.

The AFSA last made a complaint about the suitability of a US ambassador 22 years ago when it questioned the appointment of a political donor to Switzerland, but the appointment went ahead with Senate approval.

• This article was amended on 25 February 2014 to correct the characterisation of the actions AFSA was considering and where it was in that process. Additionally, it was amended to reflect the fact that the nominees have not yet been confirmed and that they did not personally donate $4.2m to Obama’s re-election campaign, but raised that money from others, and to acknowledge that James Jeffrey is not a member of AFSA’s board but was part of its guidelines working group.