By Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Marco Rubio has appointed a former member of his Senate staff with private sector experience as the U.S. State Department’s top official for Europe, according to an internal email sent on Friday seen by Reuters and two officials.
The change in the most senior official who deals with Europe issues at the State Department comes at a time when Washington is managing an increasingly tense relationship with Europe as President Donald Trump says he wants to take over Greenland, pressure allies on NATO spending and end the war in Ukraine
Trump’s administration has also proposed a major overhaul of the State Department aimed at ensuring the agency is in line with President Donald Trump’s “America First” priorities.
Louis Bono, a senior foreign service officer who was appointed as senior bureau official in the department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs when Trump took office in January, wrote to staff on Friday that Brendan Hanrahan would be taking over the role.
“Brendan brings valuable experience from the private sector and the Senate, where he served on the secretary’s staff, making him well poised to lead the bureau through the reorganization and to successfully advance the Secretary’s agenda throughout Europe and beyond,” Bono wrote in an email on Friday seen by Reuters.
It is not clear what role Hanrahan had in Rubio’s Senate office or whether he has direct experience working on foreign policy.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis; additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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