A recurring source of friction between Moley and Stull and career employees was the latter group’s adherence to longstanding chain-of-command procedures for the development and clearance of official documents, according to the report. These clearance procedures allow junior desk officers at regional bureaus to provide input on U.N. matters to IO bureau staffers. Under these procedures, the head of the bureau and senior adviser would not initially be copied on the developing documents until they were in the later development stage, depending on the significance of the issue.

“I wouldn’t need to be on the clearance if the [document] reflected this Administration’s position! It definitely does not . . . Got it!” Moley wrote in a June 2018 email to a junior desk officer at a regional bureau who had not copied him on a developing document.

Stull criticized employees for clearing certain documents that pre-dated her time at the department even though they had the authorization to do so, according to the report. Several employees also told the IG’s office that she often would refer to them or other career staffers as “Obama holdovers,” “disloyal” or “traitors.”

Additionally, Moley was upset when employees informed him that official travel he wanted to take in May 2018 did not warrant first-class accommodations under the department’s travel policies, according to the report. The assistant secretary criticized the employees for “not fighting hard enough” to get him his desired travel accommodations.

Stull is a former employee of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. During her time with the U.N., she attempted to get IO bureau staff to push for the FAO to favorably resolve a personnel claim she had filed with them, according to the report. But after receiving advice from the department’s legal adviser that such an intervention would be inappropriate, the IO bureau took no action on her behalf with FAO.