By Gram Slattery, Humeyra Pamuk and Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has moved to tighten control over the State Department, telling senior officials in a recent meeting that staff must stay in their lanes and avoid efforts that present conflicts of interest, four people familiar with the matter said.
Rubio's message, delivered last week before the Republican Party's electoral losses this Tuesday, comes as the party's leading figures attempt to put distance
between themselves and an increasingly unpopular Trump administration.
The meeting followed the high-profile resignation of US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle in mid-October after news reports raised concerns that she sold access to Trump administration officials in exchange for money, gifts and favors.
Guilfoyle has called the reports false and in a post on social media said she would defend her reputation.
Rubio told the meeting, which included many of the roughly two dozen assistant secretaries of state, that unethical behavior would result in a firing, regardless of how well-connected an official might be, said one of the people.
He added that too many officials were making decisions or pushing policy agendas without coordinating and that significant decisions required his signoff or that of Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Details of the meeting have not previously been reported.
The State Department declined to comment on the meeting.
Soon after the meeting, three of the people said, the State Department's policy chief, Jeremy Lewin, was forced out of his job in part due to concerns that he was working on matters outside his area without proper coordination. The exact details of those concerns remain unclear.
None of the people who spoke to Reuters suggested Lewin’s departure was linked to any incidents of ethical misconduct. Lewin joined the government as part of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency and helped dismantle the US Agency for International Development, which oversaw US foreign assistance.
Rubio and others within the State Department leadership were frustrated with his "freelancing" and going against "certain directives from the Secretary," one of the people said, without providing specific examples.
Lewin, who was appointed to his senior role just over two months ago, said on social media last month that he had stepped down from his role to return to the private sector.
Asked for comment, a State Department official said: "It was mutually agreed it was time (for Lewin) to move on."
Lewin said in a statement to Reuters that his departure was planned several weeks before it was announced and he denied he was fired.
"The suggestion that I was fired is false. As planned for weeks with the Secretary and his team, after staying longer than expected to finish key projects, I resigned my position prior to the midterms to assume a private sector role and plan my wedding," he said.
"It had nothing to do with any meeting or policy regarding the management of the department."
Rubio's frustrations also included excessive overseas travel by political staff, which has led to a requirement that Rubio's office approve all political travel, according to another one of the people.
REPUBLICANS LOOK BEYOND MIDTERM LOSSES
The 2028 presidential race began shifting into gear almost immediately after Tuesday's midterm elections delivered control of Congress to the Democrats. Vice President JD Vance and Republican Senator Ted Cruz offered post-mortems on X that many strategists saw as political vision statements as the campaign season begins.
Rubio himself has sought to play down reports that he is considering a run, but he has also not publicly ruled it out. If he does, his management of the State Department could emerge as a topic of conversation on the campaign trail.
President Donald Trump's administration has faced consistent accusations of self-dealing and Democrats have said they will put dealings between Trump aides and foreign officials under the microscope when they take control of Congress in January and begin launching official investigations.
Shortly after Guilfoyle left the administration in October, Rubio sent a department-wide memo reminding diplomats to "avoid conflicts of interest," according to multiple media outlets.
He subsequently denied that the memo was sent as a result of Guilfoyle's departure, telling reporters that he had in fact meant to send it weeks earlier, but that it had been held up for bureaucratic reasons.
Like other parts of the Trump administration, Rubio's department has lost officials recently.
In October, US Special Representative for Global Partnerships Paolo Zampolli was fired after Politico reported an email thread between him and Landau, in which Landau accused Zampolli of working outside his "lane" of cultural diplomacy, saying Zampolli kept wanting to work on issues outside his remit in contravention of Landau's orders.
Reuters could not determine what those issues were.
Shortly after his departure, Zampolli wrote on X that special envoy appointments last one year by statute and that Trump had extended his appointment by more than six months.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, Humeyra Pamuk and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Don Durfee and Sanjeev Miglani)
