- UK ambassador Woody Johnson fired a senior diplomat for praising ex-president Barack Obama in a talk delivered to students, reported GQ magazine.
- Diplomat Lewis Lukens in a talk to students had praised Obama's handling of the sensitive topic of LGBT rights in talks with Senegal's president in 2013.
- The report comes amid mounting concern over the politicization of the State Department under Trump.
- Several diplomats and State Department officials testified about pursuing the president's partisan political objectives in Ukraine, or being fired for not doing so, as part of the House impeachment probe.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Woody Johnson, the ambassador to the UK appointed by President Donald Trump, sacked a senior diplomat for recounting an anecdote involving President Barack Obama, reported GQ magazine.
According to the report, Lewis Lukens, a Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in London, said he was fired by Johnson in 2018 seven months before being scheduled to begin a new posting.
His indiscretion was reportedly that he had mentioned the former president in a talk given to British students just before Halloween 2018.
Most of the talk centered on the importance of US-UK ties, and came after President Trump had roiled US-UK diplomatic relations with extraordinary attacks on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and then-Prime Minister Theresa May.
Lukens had remembered being stationed in Senegal when Obama made a trip to the west African nation in 2013.
He praised the former president's handling of a meeting with Senegalese President Macky Sall, in which they discussed widespread discrimination against LGBT people in Senegal.
But instead of the discussion resulting in a tense stand off, Lukens had recalled that the leaders had handled the topic "as friends."
The anecdote, Lukens said, according to GQ, showed how nations could remain close, despite differences. But a week later, it led to the end of his State Department career when Johnson fired him.
The US embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The report comes amid growing concerns about the politicization of the US diplomatic corp under Trump, and the way political allies of the president are pursuing diplomatic goals once the preserve of seasoned officials.
Under Trump State Department budgets have been slashed, and key posts remain unfilled.
Several senior state department officials and ambassadors have testified as part of Trump's impeachment probe, in which he is accused of abusing his power in seeking an announcement from Ukraine that domestic rival Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, was under criminal investigation.
Some officials,such as EU ambassador Gordon Sondland, a political appointee, took part in the search for damaging information on Biden while former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch has testified that she lost her job for being perceived as an obstacle to the mission.
Senior State Department officials have testified that they were cut out of the process of seeking a Biden probe, and that Trump allies including Sondland and Rudy Giuliani were waging a "shadow" foreign policy in Ukraine.
