A former State Department official slammed President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday after a new State Department report was leaked to the media.
The State Department has “whittled down” its criticisms of countries with long records of human rights abuses, such as Israel, Russia, and El Salvador, The Washington Post reported. For example, the report said El Salvador had “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” last year, despite numerous prisoners in its jail system reporting being beaten.
The Trump administration has “restructured” the document to “focus on core issues” such as backsliding freedom of expression, the report added.
Former State Department staffer Keifer Buckingham slammed the report in a statement to the Post.
“Secretary [Marco] Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it’s convenient to them,” Buckingham said.
The draft reports did not refer to gender-based violence or violence against LGBTQ+ people, the Post noted. Buckingham called it a “glaring omission” for Russia, which banned LGBTQ+ organizations and labeled them “extremist,” with “raids and arrests last year,” the report added.
The countries that the State Department decided to stop criticizing also raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. For instance, Trump is negotiating an end to the War in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump also has a deal with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele to transfer undocumented migrants to Salvadoran prisons.
The president has also been involved in negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the War in Gaza.
Trump has also previously criticized “Western interventionalists” for lecturing other countries about their affairs, The Post reported.