Conservatives are pushing back against the appointment of a prominent career State Department official who served as a top aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and worked closely with her in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attacks as ambassador to Colombia.
President Donald Trump is leaning toward nominating Joseph MacManus, a 30-year veteran of the foreign service, to become ambassador to Colombia, several GOP sources tell the Washington Free Beacon.
MacManus is the frontrunner and has the strong support of Tom Shannon, a career foreign service diplomat who serves as undersecretary for political affairs and is considered Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s right-hand man.
Before MacManus emerged as the top candidate, the current ambassador to Peru, Brian Nichols, who has extensive experience in Latin American affairs, was slated for the post. His advocates believe he has far more expertise in the region than MacManus while not suffering from the Clinton baggage.
The outgoing ambassador, Kevin Whitaker, spent several years in Latin America, including serving in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, where he was deputy chief of mission from 2005 to 2007. MacManus’s experience in the region is limited to a few years in public diplomacy positions in Mexico and El Salvador for the U.S. Information Agency between 1986 and 2003, according to his bio.– READ MORE
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