The Not-So-Secret Society Whose Members Run State

Politico

24-05-2025

If you want to know who's running the State Department these days, it helps to peruse the website of a relatively new, conservative-leaning organization called the Ben Franklin Fellowship.
The group's roster includes Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, top officials in bureaus such as consular affairs, and even an acting undersecretary or two. The fellows include current and former members of the foreign service, as well as other international affairs specialists. And while the Fellowship describes itself as nonpartisan, its right-of-center views are obvious: It emphasizes goals such as border security; opposes typical diversity, equity and inclusion practices; and advocates for the careful use of U.S. resources abroad.
I have had a number of conversations with founders of the Fellowship, and they clearly cast it as a refuge for a group they believe is marginalized in U.S. diplomacy.
'It is a network of people who are not progressive and who have felt as though they've not had a forum like so many others in the State Department over the decades,' said Matthew Boyse, a Fellowship founder and a former foreign service officer.
But many career U.S. diplomats are suspicious of the organization.
They warned me that it could politicize a foreign service that is supposed to be nonpartisan and undermine policymaking by promoting MAGA-infused ideology over facts. Some worry that joining the Fellowship is an unofficial requirement to get ahead in their careers under President Donald Trump, and that its anti-DEI message will hurt women and minorities in a State Department historically dominated by white men. Some also question the qualifications of Fellowship members who have gotten plum assignments.
The Fellowship 'seems like a thinly veiled MAGA loyalist roster — like, sign up and you'll be 'one of the good ones,'' said one State Department staffer, who, like others, I granted anonymity because they didn't want to get fired for talking to a reporter.
I'll be frank: I wasn't that interested in writing about the Fellowship when I first heard about it months ago. My initial view was: So what if a bunch of right-leaning diplomats link up?
It's hardly the only group to cater to national security types across the political spectrum — from the left-leaning Truman National Security Project to the right-leaning Hudson Institute. Freedom of association is still a thing, even for diplomats who, regardless of their personal views, are expected to implement the policies of whoever is president.
But I soon concluded that the Fellowship is distinct in its heavy focus on reforming the State Department itself. It is intent on getting people with very specific views into the department, an approach that could affect U.S. foreign policy decades into the future.
And I simply couldn't ignore the Fellowship after May 2.
That was the day the State Department held its annual Foreign Affairs Day celebration. The event came amid anxiety at State over a reorganization plan that threatens many jobs and Trump's destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Several key speakers were Ben Franklin Fellows. And things got … awkward.
The speakers included Lew Olowski, State's acting human resources chief, who touted the Fellowship in his remarks. Olowski's appointment has been derided by diplomats who argue he is too junior and not qualified for the job.
Then there was Phillip Linderman. He's a retired diplomat and another Fellowship founder, and he was given a major prize, the Foreign Service Directors General's Cup. At one point, Linderman told the audience he was accepting the award on behalf of 'overlooked' foreign service officers who had 'been intentionally passed over for promotion and assignments abroad' due to 'extreme' DEI policies.
Some audience members walked out at this point. Many watching online reached out to me, aghast at Linderman's comments, which they said implied women and minorities who received promotions hadn't deserved them.
Also speaking was Landau, the deputy secretary of State. He repeatedly raised the concept of respect and said he was disappointed by the earlier walkouts. But his remarks drew heckles from some audience members who asked why the Trump administration was disrespecting U.S.-allied nations and employees of USAID. Such interruptions were a shocking breach of decorum for an audience of diplomats.
In subsequent interviews with the Fellowship's founders — Boyse, Linderman and Simon Hankinson — I've tried to figure out what drives the Fellowship and how much power it truly wields.
The answer is, like so much of the world right now, murky.
The Fellowship's founders insist they are not trying to inject partisan politics into U.S. diplomacy and that the last thing they want is to create a right-wing 'deep state' inside the government.
'We very much believe in the constitutional order, which is that the federal bureaucracy works for the president, and it doesn't have a policy interest, a legitimate policy interest, outside of what the president wants to do,' Linderman told me.
But the Fellowship's leaders argue conservative views are barely represented within the foreign service, which undermines policy debates. So while suspicious diplomats worry the Fellowship will skew policy debates toward one ideology, the Fellowship's leaders say the debates are already unhealthily skewed toward another.
Both Hankinson and Linderman said they'd separately thought of setting up a network of conservative diplomats years ago, but Linderman did much of the early legwork that eventually led to the Fellowship. Boyse connected the two men.
At State, there have long been different kinds of employee associations. They include 'affinity groups' that link people of different faith, ethnic and other backgrounds, including military veterans. Many on the right saw such groups as vehicles for progressive ideas. The current Trump administration has effectively disbanded many such groups on grounds that they promote gender and racial ideology.
For a variety of often logistical reasons, Boyse, Hankinson and Linderman chose to create the Fellowship as an independent nonprofit outside the State Department. That choice also gives the group a bit more freedom than being under State's auspices.
Linderman told me he was especially motivated to create the Fellowship, which was up and running by last year, during the Joe Biden presidency.
That administration, he said, radicalized the State Department leftward, especially in its promotion of DEI policies and, in his view, a lax treatment of migration. (Linderman is affiliated with the Center for Immigration Studies, which wants to restrict immigration.)
When I pressed Linderman about his comments at the award ceremony, he pointed to the Fellowship's roster, which includes women and minorities. These fellows believe in the group's principles and resent being thought of as 'DEI hires,' he said. He and the other founders stress that they don't oppose diversity in general but that it's unfair for a person's immutable characteristics to be given more weight than another's accomplishments in, say, promotions.
Linderman also told me he was surprised to receive the award but was told — he wouldn't say by whom — that his work on the Fellowship affected his selection.
Despite diplomats' suspicions, I couldn't find proof that the Fellowship is outright directing State Department policy or personnel decisions — at least not as an organization.
U.S. diplomats in multiple time zones told me they'd not seen formal, written State communications that mentioned the group. A senior State official familiar with the situation also said he's not heard the group mentioned by top officials as a must-consult entity.
But these are early days, and the Fellowship is taking actions designed to seed long-term conservative influence in the diplomatic ranks. Even if creating a conservative 'deep state' is not a formal goal of the Fellowship's founders, a future Democratic president may find a foreign service that's far less amenable to their goals.
The State Department would not directly answer my questions about the Fellowship's role, including whether a person's affiliation with the group affects personnel decisions. But it sent me a statement that said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his team 'value the insights, ideas, and leadership provided by members of the Ben Franklin Fellowship. We're grateful for their service to our country.'
The Fellowship's founders said there have been one-on-one talks between top State officials and individuals in their group at various settings, but they described that as typical Washington networking. And fellows such as Landau and Olowski, for instance, are likely to have significant influence over hiring given their official positions at State.
Hankinson, who also spent years in the foreign service, said the overlap between the group's Fellows and the State staffing chart comes down to math. The pool of current and former U.S. diplomats known to have views that match Trump's is small.
'One of our primary goals is to serve as a network to connect career diplomats and other foreign policy professionals who share the same values — including openly advocating for the U.S. national interest in foreign affairs,' Hankinson said. He added that if a Democratic administration sought Fellowship members' suggestions for hires, they'd offer them ideas, too. 'I suspect that won't happen,' he chuckled.
I pointed out that Olowski is much less experienced than past diplomats who've overseen human resources at State. How is that a merit-based promotion?
But Hankinson noted that Olowski had the role on an acting basis and argued that he had a solid résumé. Hankinson also said many political appointees under other administrations were underqualified for their roles. The Fellowship's concerns about putting merit over DEI are centered more on the career foreign service, not political appointees. (Olowski did not respond to my request for comment; neither did Landau.)
The Fellowship has largely been funded out of its founders' pockets, but it is seeking grants and accepting donations, Hankinson said. One superficial but potentially tricky challenge it will face is differentiating itself from multiple other programs named after Franklin, who is considered America's first diplomat. (That's one reason the group uses 'Ben' instead of 'Benjamin' in its name.)
The organization has multiple levels of affiliation, including fellows, members and people who are on the mailing list. Becoming a fellow or a member involves vetting to ensure the applicant agrees with the basic principles of the group, Hankinson said.
At the moment, he added, 'we're seeing a lot of interest.'