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Records from the State Department in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between White House officials and now-former State Department appointee Mari Stull, who was a lobbyist prior to joining the Trump administration. This request was made following reports that State employees were being investigated by Stull to determine if they were disloyal to the Trump administration.
These records span May 2018 to January 2019, when Stull worked as a senior adviser at the Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the Department of State.
April 26, 2018: Stull emailed then-White House Deputy Associate Director Emily Sissell (Moley is copied) with a list of potential candidates to replace an American UN position in Haiti. The names of the potential candidates are redacted, but Stull notes that the first person on her list is “Pro Trump.”
May 16, 2018: White House official Margaux Radano sent Stull a resume with the subject line “WHO Candidate.” In her email, Radano only wrote, “You are welcome ;).”
May 17, 2018: Stull received an email from an individual (whose identity is redacted) applying for an open position at UNICEF. Stull forwarded the email to Sissell and asked, “May I have the WH vet on this candidate?”
May 30, 2018: Sissell emailed Stull to ask for a quick phone call. In Stull’s reply she attached a resume “for vet[ting].” (It is unclear whether this is the same candidate referred to on May 17.)
June 7, 2018: Stull sent a resume to Sissell and wrote, “This one is for one of the special positions at International Atomic Energy Agency or NATO.” Stull also indicated that both she and Moley knew that applicant.
June 12, 2018: State official Margaret Dougherty sent seven resumes to Stull and Moley. Stull forwarded the resumes to Sissell for review the next day and wrote “For vet!”
June 18, 2018: Stull forwarded Sissell an email from a potential candidate for a UN ambassador position in Rome.
June 27, 2018: Cooper Godfrey, then special assistant at the Treasury Department, emailed Nordquist (and copied then-Treasury Undersecretary David Malpass) a resume for the role of Deputy Secretary General at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Nordquist forwarded the email to Stull the same day.
July 13, 2018: Leslie Hyland, long-time career official then working at the State Department, forwarded to Stull an email with the subject line “Advocating for Americans at UN organizations,” regarding two U.S. citizen applicants competing for the same position.
July 31, 2018: Adviser to the UN Secretary General David Vennett sent an email to Stull about a UN Information Center position. Stull forwarded Vennett’s email to Sissell.
Aug. 9, 2018: Dougherty emailed Sissell, Stull, and Moley about a potential candidate for a UN Panel of Experts position related to Libya.
Sept. 14, 2018: Sissell emailed Stull an email with an attachment, with the subject line including the word “Resume.”
Nov. 7, 2018: David Short, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Transportation, forwarded the resume of a job candidate to Stull. Stull asked Hyland to follow up with Short directly.
May 11, 2018: Piero Tozzi, staff director and counsel for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, emailed Mari Stull — then Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO) senior adviser to then-Assistant Secretary Kevin Moley — about a May 15, 2018, State Department briefing regarding the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala. Tozzi wrote: “Critical that IO is represented by either you or assistant secretary Moley, and not career staff, as you would faithfully represent the Administration. […] The information that you will be receiving the US Embassy in Guatemala is not to be relied upon.”
May 18, 2018: Nordquist forwarded a “G7 doc” to Stull. Jennifer “DJ” Nordquist joined the White House as chief of staff of the Council of Economic Advisers in June 2017. She was nominated to be the U.S. executive director at the World Bank Group by Trump in March 2019 and was subsequently confirmed by the Senate in September 2019.
June 4, 2018: Nordquist emailed an overview of the OECD’s 2018 U.S. Economic Survey to Stull.
June 11, 2018: Stull forwarded a document to Hunter Morgen, then the principal deputy to White House advisers Peter Navarro and Stephen Miller. Stull asked, “Did your positions get reflected here?” The subject and title of the document are redacted.
June 13, 2018: Stull emailed USAID officials Alma Golden and Bethany Kozma, then-White House official Kathryn Talento, and then-HHS official Valerie Huber (Moley is copied) about a meeting that Moley could not attend with the United Nations Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Stull wrote: “Are you all on her schedule? […] [Y]ou may be better suited to meet w her, anyway.”
Golden was sworn in as USAID’s assistant administrator for global health in March 2020. Huber, who is an abstinence-only advocate, moved from HHS to the White House’s Office of Global Affairs, where she works on health-related diplomacy efforts. Kozma joined USAID in 2017, and has publicly expressed anti-transgender stances.
June 17, 2018: Stull emailed then-National Security Council official Jennifer Arangio (with Moley copied) about an agenda document titled “Plan of Action on Human Resources for Universal Access to Health and Universal Health Coverage.” The document appears to be for a Pan American Health Organization committee meeting that week. Stull wrote, “I started to redline our statement, but I just don’t have the competency to address this issue.”
June 22, 2018: Nordquist emailed Stull and State Department officials Robin Brooks and Lisa Browne a drafted response to a report on the U.S. by the UN’ special rapporteur for poverty and human rights. (Moley is copied on the email).
July 13, 2018: Stull emailed John Zadrozny (then a White House official), State Department official Len Khodorkovsky, and State official Carrie Filipetti about the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) with the subject line “Circling back on the WH statement on CICIG.”
Zadrozny worked as a State Department official and on the Domestic Policy Council before moving to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in June 2019. Zadrozny previously worked at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which is considered to be an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Sept. 13, 2018: Stull emailed White House Adviser Hunter Morgen and wrote: “Grateful for your team’s review on the report on the outcome of UPU and accompanying Congressional letter.” It is likely that UPU is a reference to the Universal Postal Union.
Sept. 19, 2018: Morgen emailed Moley and Stull (the email is partially redacted) with the subject line “UPU PM.” The unredacted portion of the email may indicate that Morgen and Peter Navarro talked about UPU with former Acting Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan.
Nov. 5, 2018: Stull emailed then-NSC official Howard Wachtel and Moley, copying State Department officials Catharine O’Neill and Charlotte Florance, then DHS appointee Katharine Gorka, and Kozma, from Israel after traveling to Cyprus on a UN peacekeeping trip. Stull wrote: “[We] have been fine tuning the Administration’s National WPS Strategy w field input.” WPS is a reference to the Women, Peace and Security UN initiative.
Dec. 4, 2018: Stull sent then-White House adviser Pranay Udutha a presentation on Chinese influence in the UN and a Heritage Foundation report on tying foreign aid to UN voting practices.
Jan. 9, 2019: Stull forwarded to Morgen an email from Zurab Pololikashvili, secretary general of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), about a meeting that took place on Nov. 19, 2018, at the headquarters of the UNWTO regarding U.S. membership.
June 1, 2018: A memo prepared by the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues titled “OAS, General Assembly, and promotion of abortion.”
May 4, 2018: Special Rapporteur report on extreme poverty and human rights in the United States.
May 11, 2018: A copy of “Plan of Action on Human Resources for Universal Access to Health and Universal Health Coverage 2018-2023.” The resolution was presented at the Pan American Health Organization’s 162nd executive committee session.
Part of Investigation: