Conservatives criticize State Department over alleged employee therapy sessions after Trump victory

Conservatives are criticizing the State Department and calling for answers from Secretary of States Antony Blinken about alleged taxpayer-funded therapy sessions for agency employees after Republican Donald Trump won the Nov. 5 presidential election. 

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., recently sent Blinken a letter requesting answers about the alleged session or sessions. 

"I want to thank the brave men and women of the State Department who were ordered to go to these sessions, in some cases, went there, snapped pictures and sent it to us, and said, 'This is ridiculous. How could they do this?' So they're not all partisan liberals," Issa said Monday on the Just the News Not Noise television program.

"Some of them look and say, 'I've got an important job to do.' There's war and hardship all over the world as a result of this failed administration, and they'd like to get to work being the diplomats and the people that help President Trump bring peace back to our planet," he also said.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Bobby Charles said government agencies should not spend tax dollars on counseling people and that democracy is "hard to handle" after an election.

"Democracy is democracy. A Republic has elections at various levels all the time  ... This, to me, is the downstream effect of giving every child a trophy in first grade," he told Just the News.

"There are times when you lose and there are times when you win and when you lose, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be politics. It could be a soccer game. It could be a baseball game. When you lose, you go back, you look at the tapes, you say, 'What did I do wrong?'" Charles also said.

Charles said he used to play hockey and review the tapes of games to improve, and that is how election results should be handled.

"What did I do wrong? Where was I out of position? What should I have done that I didn't do? And then you fix it. And you know, the best thing in the world that can happen is that you fail a few times because you begin to perfect the things that you got wrong so that you can get them right," he said. "And so that's true in politics."

Rep.-elect Abe Hamadeh, R-Arizona, said Issa and the House Oversight panel, of which he is a member, are "exactly right" in demanding answers to learn more about the alleged sessions and how much money was spent on them if they indeed occurred.

"The American people, they should be horrified that their tax dollars are being used for counseling sessions because [then-Democratic presidential nominee Vice President] Kamala Harris lost the election," he told Just the News.

"I'm curious to see who the employees were, whether they were high-level employees or low-level employees of the State Department," Hamadeh also said. "But quite honestly, the American people demand our government workers to be professional, right? They serve the American people, not a party, and that's how it should be."