[Salon] Leaked State Department Memo Reveals Profound Restructuring

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/state-department-memo-congress-budget

Leaked State Department Memo Reveals Profound Restructuring

Drop Site obtained the internal memo reshaping U.S. diplomacy. Even senior lawmakers say they never saw, nor heard of, it.

Ryan Grim

Today, Washington, D.C. saw quite a large gathering of Democratic Party centrists at an event called WelcomeFest 2025, themed “For the People in the Middle.” Members of Congress and assorted high-dollar donors mingled with speakers like Matthew Yglesias to celebrate the new Abundance movement, kicked off by the eponymous book, and deride “the groups” allegedly responsible for depriving the people of said abundance. 

I took a look at the ideas behind the Abundance movement in a story today that looks at it through the lens of a stalled housing-and-parkland project in Manhattan called Hudson Yards West. Give that a read here if you have a moment. 

We’re also publishing a big scoop by journalist Nicolae Viorel Butler, who got his hands on a State Department memo outlining an extraordinary reorganization. Read on for details. We’re publishing this story in partnership with Migrant Insider, where Nicolae regularly writes. 

—Ryan Grim

Organizational chart for the restructured State Department in a sensitive but unclassified memo obtained by Drop Site.

Story by Nicolae Viorel Butler

In early May, a sensitive State Department memo began circulating through select committees on Capitol Hill. Congressional Note 25-032 lays out a radical reorganization of the U.S. diplomatic corps that would eliminate many programs long associated with the U.S., including support for free speech, women's rights, and cultural exchange. But despite its sweeping scope—including the elimination of over 100 offices and thousands of jobs—Drop Site could only find a single member of Congress that had seen it.

The memo was first revealed, in a very limited way, when Politico and others reported on the Office of Reemigration. The memo was first revealed via The Wire, who focused largely on the development of the new Office of Reemigration. However, the 136 page memo was more broad, and extensive, than any four paragraph mention on immigration reform. It effectively rewrites what the State Department is—and who it serves—from the top-down. Much of the foreign aid—like USAID and Refugee Assistance—will be repurposed for immigration under the new Office of Reemigration.

Even Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, which was supposed to have received the note given its major impact on the budget, had not seen it. Neither had senators including Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), who serves on both Foreign Relations and Appropriations. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the powerful Chair of the Judiciary Committee and a hardliner on immigration, told Drop Site he had no knowledge of the memo’s existence.

"I haven't seen it," Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) told me during the 4:30 PM vote outside the House Chambers. "The committee may have it, but I haven't seen it personally," even though he’d need to review the memo before adjusting the State Department budget.

The only member to acknowledge it was Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mast told Drop Site that he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have “weekly phone calls about restructuring.” But even Mast offered qualified responses, suggesting many of the memo’s structural changes are difficult to interpret. “You're probably looking at a chart with bubbles on it, right?” he said, referencing the graphs that outline department changes. “There’s a lot of places you just simply don’t see because you don’t see the bubble for every single thing out there.”

The Department of State has not released the memo to the public, and it has not briefed Congress publicly on its implications. Requests for comment were ignored by six congressional committees that should have received it.

Instead, the memo is being implemented administratively, within the boundaries of existing State Department authority, by July 1.

The full memo, obtained by Drop Site, is available here:

State Department Restructuring Memo

2.65MB ∙ PDF file

Download

What the Memo Reveals

The 136-page reorganization memo outlines a vision of the State Department stripped of its traditional diplomatic, human rights, and cultural programs—and recast as a command-driven, security-first bureaucracy.

By July 1, the department plans to eliminate or consolidate:

According to the memo’s dictates, what remained of USAID has been thoroughly warped and fully woven into the State Department where it no longer serves its former stated purpose of cultural diplomacy and soft-power humanitarianism. Instead, the State Department has explicitly centralized executive command and control and effectively militarized the executive’s approach to disaster response, population control, and national security.

Toward this end, new offices will be created to monitor emerging threats, enforce migration controls, and consolidate foreign aid oversight under political leadership.

“There is a true command and control of it in a way that there wasn’t,” Rep. Mast told Drop Site. “That command and control will take place under the political branches.”

Disappearing Diplomacy

Among the bureaus being terminated outright are:

These are not consolidations. These are “eliminations,” the memo states.

Instead, new entities like the Bureau of Emerging Threats, Office of Remigration, and Office of Foreign Assistance Oversight will rise in their place—built around security, repatriation, and centralized data enforcement and reinforced cyber security.

The memo creates powerful “Under Secretaries,” including one post that now controls the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Counterterrorism, International Narcotics, and the newly formed Emerging Threats unit. USAID’s traditional independence is also gutted. Its functions are folded under a new Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance & Humanitarian Affairs.

From Civilian to Combatant Mindset

When Drop Site asked Rep. Mast whether this shift represents a militarization of the State Department, his answer was revealing.

“There’s still a Department of State and a Department of Defense,” he said. But then he added: “The State Department was doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been doing… most of the items [in the rescissions package] were, trans this, trans that, lifestyle things, not life-saving things… political things, unwelcome in these areas.”

Instead, Mast argued, the changes represent a reset. “It’s a refocus to say, ‘What makes us the partner of choice?’” He invoked the perspective of Secretary Rubio, suggesting the restructured State Department will deliver aid only where “transactional” benefits exist—especially in competition with China.

But the stated intentions of the memo suggest this isn’t just an effort to streamline efficiencies and correct inefficiencies: it's a pivot away from diplomacy—and toward control.

Budget Shifts Reveal the Priorities

The memo includes budget transfers that require no new legislation. Key increases include:

Meanwhile, sharp cuts hit:

And yet, no congressional hearings are scheduled. No comment period has been opened. And none of the lawmakers interviewed by Drop Site have been briefed on the memo.

Opaque and Unauthorized

When Drop Site asked Mast whether the memo was final, he said, “No, no, there's still changes being made.” But he added it would largely shape the coming State Department reauthorization, describing it as “what we’re eating, sleeping, and breathing on Foreign Affairs.”

Still, Mast acknowledged that the changes are hard even for insiders to track. “Maybe you saw this program under J Branch before… now it went under Global Health, or here, or there.”

This obfuscation appears intentional. Even seasoned reporters found the nonanswers from representatives unusual.

Whereas State Department offices once purported to promote cultural exchange, atrocity prevention, and civilian diplomacy, there now exists a more directly executed bureaucratic machine for surveillance, sanctions, and strategic messaging. Accountability has been restructured. Civilian oversight is blurred or eliminated. What was once soft power has taken on a harder command and control edge.


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