A senior Donald Trump administration official cut short a career civil servant's assignment to the State Department policy planning office following a smear campaign involving misinformation about her political loyalties and Iranian heritage, a long-anticipated report released today by the State Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded.

The 54-page report, “Review of Allegations of Politicized and Other Improper Personnel Practices Involving the Office of the Secretary,” said that in April 2017, then State Department policy planning chief Brian Hook (now the US special envoy on Iran), terminated the assignment to the department's policy planning office of an unnamed “Employee One,” a career civil servant who has been identified in media reports and who confirmed her identity as Sahar Nowrouzzadeh. The report describes how a group of Trump administration political appointees in the White House and then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s office circulated an article published on March 14, 2017, by the right-wing Conservative Review that smeared Nowrouzzadeh, who began her civil service career during the Republican George W. Bush administration, as an “Obama holdover” who had promoted “initiatives that pushed the Iran deal,” and discussed possible pretexts to remove her from her job.

“OIG found that Department officials ended the detail of a career employee in the Office of Policy Planning after significant discussion concerning the employee’s perceived political views, association with former administrations, and perceived national origin, which are non-merit factors that may not be considered in assigning career personnel under the Department’s policies,” the report said.

“OIG concludes that Mr. Hook would not have ended the detail early without being prompted by others who, as described previously, appear to have been motivated to prematurely end Employee One’s detail by factors unrelated to Employee One’s performance or willingness or capability to implement the new administration’s policies,” it said.