November 14, 2026
AFSA is attempting to discredit the Ben Franklin Fellowship (BFF). This is unfortunate for several reasons, not least because BFF seeks to strengthen the State Department but also because AFSA has revealed its double standards in the process.
AFSA leaders feign the pretense that no other foreign policy groups have professional networks inside Foggy Bottom. Most tellingly, AFSA has never published any concerns about the “politicizing” activities of Foreign Policy for America (FP4A), a liberal-left membership organization that has an entrenched cadre among former and current State Department officials.
Foreign Policy for America is a self-described association of diplomats, national security leaders, and policy experts dedicated to advancing its foreign affairs values. BFF recognizes this as a legitimate undertaking, although we do not share many FP4A values, which include maintaining Biden-era State Department priorities: DEI personnel practices, the status quo in foreign assistance, and expansive resettlement of refugees and economic migrants inside the United States, to name just a few. FP4A emerged in 2017 to resist the foreign affairs initiative of the first Trump administration.
In many organizational ways, BFF and FP4A are similar. The State Department formally recognizes neither organization, nor does either group have access to official government space. We do not know if FP4A has had access to the use of AFSA office space.
Both groups are 501(c)3 membership and policy nonprofit corporations; both have senior members who come from the career ranks of the State Department or have served as presidential appointees. (Note: Unlike BFF, FP4A is also a 501(c)4 advocacy group with an active political action committee.)
Both groups conduct outreach activities to recruit mid-level officers and rising young foreign affairs professionals. To be sure, BFF is a junior rival and newcomer in comparison to the powerhouse FP4A, which has many former senior State Department officials and career ambassadors in its orbit, including prominent names such as Nick Burns, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Christie Kenney, Laura Kennedy, Tom Countryman, and others.
Indeed, Antony Blinken was part of the FP4A network. In 2021, Secretary Blinken drew on the organization’s ranks to certify and elevate senior career officials to leadership roles inside Foggy Bottom. FP4A thus served – and continues to serve – as a deep bench of talented foreign affairs practitioners, in and out of government, for Democrat administrations. What makes FP4A different from other liberal foreign policy think tanks is precisely its focus on organizing and networking career officials.
BFF does the same thing in our space. In 2025, Secretary Marco Rubio followed the Blinken staffing playbook. Rubio’s bench was far thinner, given the paucity of conservatives inside State, but for the first time, a Republican secretary was able systematically to identify senior career officials who could be entrusted to implement administration priorities. Indeed, presidents have always relied on senior career officials to help run State Department, but AFSA is approvingly silent about FP4A, while heaping scorn on BFF. If AFSA is suggesting that conservatives are slow learners, we will accept that charge.
AFSA leaders may respond that the key difference is that senior career FP4A folks “resigned” from that organization when they assumed high-level positions inside the State Department. Really? Talk about a fig leaf. No one seriously believes that these officials stopped being strong behind-the-scenes FP4A networkers just because their names disappeared from the group’s website. We all know how Washington works.
Moreover, did they all actually resign? AFSA should be curious about how many active-duty State officers are in fact FP4A members in good standing. How many State officers will show up at the next FP4A leadership conference in Washington in May, where Secretary Rubio is likely to be vociferously denounced?
Ignoring the decade-long history of FP4A, Eric Rubin charges that BFF is engaging in “partisan activities,” cleverly conflating illegitimate political activism with the legitimate activity of holding policy convictions. In so doing, he seeks to discredit BFF values by using cancel culture intimidation tactics. Mr. Rubin even reaches for the Hatch Act, which rightly prohibits partisan political activities, but clearly defines them as measures that promote a candidate seeking public office. BFF does not get involved in campaigning for candidates but instead, fully consistent with federal and State ethics rules, we network, debate, and organize discussions.
AFSA should reflect on the differences between partisanship and policy advocacy. For example, the Trump administration ordered all DEI ended, full stop. But by Mr. Rubin’s benchmark, is AFSA not engaging in partisanship by calling for keeping DEI precepts in the EER process? According to Mr. Rubin, the American Academy of Diplomacy must be acting in a partisan manner when it takes a stand against the Trump administration decision to abolish USAID.
To the best of my knowledge, AFSA has never expressed any opinion about how the Biden administration turned to FP4A to staff Secretary Blinken’s State Department. AFSA leaders should honestly reflect on why they were unconcerned about FP4A but have launched a campaign to cancel and discredit BFF.
The emergence of BFF is healthy for the career ranks because we bring policy balance to Foggy Bottom’s left-lopsided ingrained orthodoxies, of which AFSA’s current leadership is part and parcel. Current AFSA leaders appear incapable of actually analyzing our view that the old Foreign Service machinery was de facto designed to prioritize liberal-left officers over conservatives in recruiting, promoting, and credentialing for senior career positions. It was not neutral and unbiased; and in many ways it produced a career leadership fundamentally out of step with the American people on matters of U.S. international engagement.
Yes, we are all foreign affairs professionals, and we serve whomever the American people elect as president – or we honorably resign. For the record, we think our performance under Obama/Biden was more professional than that of our detractors under both Trump administrations. But like any association of carpenters, dentists, or accountants, BFF has an inherent right to organize in support of debate and discussion, and to foster the careers of our most skilled members. AFSA should welcome our arrival and the checks and balances on the system that we represent. No matter, BFF is here to stay.
