US News

Qns. rep’s ‘firing’ line

WASHINGTON — Freshman Queens Rep. Grace Meng unveiled a bill yesterday that would allow the State Department to fire supervisors for poor leadership, pointing to last year’s terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

No department workers were disciplined after the attack that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

An advisory review board found “systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” at the department. But then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton later testified to the House Foreign Relations Committee — on which Meng, a Democrat, sits — that regulations prevented the board from recommending disciplinary action.

Under the rules, poor leadership is not the necessary “breach of duty” required for disciplinary action, Clinton said.

Meng’s bill would lower the threshold that the board would have to meet, allowing for the dismissal of employees who have “engaged in misconduct or unsatisfactorily performed [their] duties of employment.”