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False ambassador has been working in government affairs for five months

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'This major credibility problem is a product of his own creation'

For five months, an Obama administration official falsely presented himself as an official U.S. ambassador. 

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Highlights

By Nikky Andres (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
10/2/2015 (8 years ago)

Published in Politics & Policy

Keywords: Brett McGurk, Global Coalition, ambassador

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Brett McGurk, who is a deputy special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition serving under General John Allen, was temporarily appointed by the administration as an ambassador on October 18, 2014.
McGurk was conferred this position through a legal loophole that lets the administration bypass congressional confirmation for a term up to six months. Senate-confirmed ambassadors are granted the title for life.

Presenting himself an official of the United States was a temporary ambassadorship that expired April this year and cannot be extended under U.S. law, yet he continued to use his position to defend the administration's Syria policy via print media and television.
State Department records show that McGurk was routinely referred to as an ambassador past the expiration date of his temporary ambassadorship and his official biography on the State Department's website falsely credited him as an ambassador. The State Department insists that such appointments were the result of a mistake. 
After receiving several inquiries from the Free Beacon on Tuesday, the State Department changed the website to remove the honorific. 
Reports of a "State Department VIP" receiving "pleasure of an oral nature from another State Department officer not his wife, or even his journalist mistress at the time" was assumed to be about McGurk, who had had an affair with a Wall Street journalist.
Following the controversy surrounding McGurk, he was appointed to a new, non-confirmable post as the administration's deputy assistant secretary for Iran and Iraq. 
McGurk's decision to continue to act as an ambassador despite the title's expiration "may disqualify [him] from future posts" a congressional source said. The source added McGurk's previous behavior in Iraq left him unfit to serve as envoy to the Coalition to Counter the Islamic State, saying "These decisions have already sown serious seeds of doubt in his professionalism and character. This major credibility problem is a product of his own creation."

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