Heights of dysfunction

‘It’s a disaster over there’: Commerce reaches new heights of dysfunction

Under Secretary Wilbur Ross, the department is chaotic and adrift.

By DANIEL LIPPMAN

Constant infighting among top officials. Sudden departures of senior staffers without explanation. A leader who is disengaged and prone to falling asleep in meetings.

The Commerce Department has reached its apex of dysfunction under Wilbur Ross, according to four people with knowledge of the inner workings of the department. The 81-year-old Commerce secretary, who has for months endured whispers that he is on the outs, spends much of his time at the White House to try to retain President Donald Trump’s favor, the sources said, leaving his department adrift.

He’s hardly the only top Trump official to seek the president’s approval. But department insiders say they’ve rarely seen Commerce so rudderless -- and they say Ross’s penchant for managing upward at the expense of his staff is leading to what one plugged-in observer described as “a disaster over there.”

“With our ongoing trade wars and the census looming, Commerce needs functional leadership in order to be effective, and right now they just don’t have it,” said Theo LeCompte, a former top Commerce official in the Obama administration who speaks often with former colleagues.

One common complaint: Ross, a successful investor before Trump tapped him for his current job, isn’t frequently seen in the building talking to employees or rallying them to do good work.

“He’s sort of seen as kind of irrelevant. The morale is very low there because there’s not a lot of confidence in the secretary,” said a former outside adviser to Commerce who is still in touch with many employees inside the department. “He’s not respected in the building.”

Ross doesn’t hold routine meetings with senior staffers, according to a person familiar with the department’s inner workings and a former outside adviser -- a departure from past practice that one source attributed to the secretary’s lack of stamina.

“Because he tends to fall asleep in meetings, they try not to put him in a position where that could happen so they’re very careful and conscious about how they schedule certain meetings,” said the former outside adviser. “There’s a small window where he’s able to focus and pay attention and not fall asleep.”

A Commerce official disputed that characterization, saying that Ross has frequent afternoon meetings, including “long” meetings on the census.

“Secretary Ross is a tireless worker who is the sole decision-maker at the department," said Commerce Press Secretary Kevin Manning. "He routinely works 12-hour days and travels often, with visits to seven countries and eight states in the last three months to advance the president’s agenda."

Yet top Commerce officials have pushed to not have Ross called to testify at congressional oversight hearings, according to two sources close to the department, because they fear he isn’t up to the task. “There’s a great deal of effort to shield him from testifying ever again,” said one of the sources.

A Commerce official disputed this and said, “He’s obviously going to have to testify again. … You can’t get through the rest of [congressional appropriations] season without testifying again.”

Ross did testify at an oversight hearing on the census for nearly seven hours in March, and emerged through the ordeal generally unscathed. But according to one person familiar with the department, the consensus among the top ranks of the administration was that it would be best to avoid a repeat appearance.

“There was a great deal of concern to not have him testify expressed from the White House,” this person said, characterizing the instructions as: “‘Don’t do this, people. Don’t do this, he’s probably not the right guy to go there.’”

Ross certainly has other reasons to avoid Congress -- namely, the heated dispute between Hill Democrats and the administration over adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

In April, Ross offered to send aides to testify on his behalf before a House Appropriations subcommittee, an offer the panel’s Democratic chairman, Jose Serrano, said showed “stunning disrespect.” Serrano’s Republican counterpart, Robert Aderholt, told Reuters that Ross refused to testify out of “concern that this hearing might focus more on political or legal issues than the budget itself.”

“His relationship with the Hill has deteriorated more and more and he’s just not interested in dealing with the Hill if he can avoid it,” said a person familiar with the department’s internal discussions.

A Commerce official noted that Ross talked to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) two weeks ago, and held a party two months ago that a number of senators attended. Another Commerce employee observed, “This administration is very hesitant to do oversight in general or to comply with oversight requests in general.”

There are public signs, however, of apparent unease with Ross as a spokesperson for the administration. At an appearance at the White House in mid-July on an announcement on abandoning the citizenship question in the census, the Commerce secretary stood next to Trump the entire time and was the only one of the three people who didn’t speak. Attorney General Bill Barr, on the other hand, spoke at length.

Ross’s relationship with the White House and with Trump was also damaged by stories that came out in the last 18 months showing that he wasn’t as rich as he had claimed and hadn’t fully divested some stock as he had promised, according to the former outside adviser. (The Commerce official disputed that, arguing that the White House has not cared about these issues.)

Ross’s deputies, meanwhile, are coming under fire of their own as tensions rise inside the department.

Political appointees sometimes close doors right in front of career employees to keep them out of meetings, one former Commerce official in touch with former colleagues said.

Meanwhile, “it’s totally infighting among the politicals,” said another person familiar with the department. “It’s just everybody fighting everybody.” In particular, the relationship between Ross’s office and the legislative affairs team is “clearly broken,” this person said.

Charles “Kolo” Rathburn, who had been acting head of legislative affairs, “was unceremoniously let go” and abruptly left earlier in July, according to a person familiar with Commerce and the outside adviser, who said it had to do with issues of professional conduct in the workplace. Another person familiar with Commerce also confirmed his departure.

“He wasn’t allowed to clean out his office,” said one of the people. Rathburn had replaced Mike Platt, who had left in early May.

A Commerce official said that Rathburn, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, is working to pass the bar exam and has an offer for a higher-paying position at a law firm if he does.

Ross Branson, who had been deputy assistant secretary of legislative affairs and was Platt’s deputy, also left Commerce on Friday, according to two people familiar with his departure. He had became “collateral damage,” according to one of the people, and was told that he had to look for a new job. He starts on Monday as head of legislative affairs at the Export-Import Bank, a position that a Commerce official described as “definitely a promotion.” Branson and the Ex-Im Bank did not respond to a request for comment.

Much of the tension inside the building has centered on Earl Comstock, who shepherded Ross’s confirmation on Capitol Hill and is one of the secretary’s top lieutenants as the department's policy director.

The disarray inside Commerce is drawing an intervention from Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and other White House officials, who are trying to figure out how to wrest control from Comstock, who increasingly seems to be involved in everything that happens inside the department.

“Things come to a screeching halt because he demands to be the final decision on everything whether it’s an email that goes out to the Hill or a letter to respond to X, Y and Z,” said a person familiar with Commerce.

Comstock, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, has also been at the center of many of the spectrum battles between the Federal Communications Commission and the departments of Transportation, Education and Commerce and NASA and NOAA, according to an administration official. He has “literally been seeding bad intel and bad information to get other people agitated,” said the official.

He also tried to scuttle a joint White House-FCC summit on 5G, the wireless technology, in April by “calling everyone he could 24 hours before the event trying to get it to be canceled,” this person said. Comstock clashed in particular with former National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief David Redl, who left his post abruptly in May.

Critics of Ross’s leadership at Commerce also have a new target of concern: chief of staff Michael Walsh, who is described by some as inexperienced on policy and difficult to work with.

Walsh didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the Commerce official said that he has good relationships throughout the administration and on the Hill and visits the White House frequently. A second person familiar with Commerce also claimed, “People want his job so they’re spreading bad stuff on him.”

The chaos inside the department has had consequences for some employees.

“There’s great frustration among people who really want to use their skills and talents to help this country and are being marginalized by a White House who doesn’t need to ask any questions because it already thinks it has the answers,” said Roger Fisk, a Commerce official in the Obama administration. “All of that expertise is just lying dormant hiding in plain sight."