The JUNTO Podcast – Featuring BFF Fellow and Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Matt Pierce

In this episode, BFF Chairman Phil Linderman sits down with Matt Pierce, BFF Fellow and Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs. Matt shares his path to the State Department, his rise through the Consular Affairs bureau, and the challenges and opportunities in today’s passport and visa environment.

Matt offers listeners an inside look at how U.S. passport and visa services operate — at headquarters and at posts around the world — and explains what the public should know about the scale and importance of this mission. He also discusses efforts to modernize the passport process, strengthen security, to route out fraud and address vulnerabilities that foreign actors and criminal networks may seek to exploit.

The conversation highlights how Consular Affairs shapes passport and citizenship policy in support of America’s national interest, and how the bureau works with partners across government on fraud and security cases. Matt concludes with a message to State Department CA colleagues worldwide about professionalism, service, and the future of U.S. diplomacy.

In this episode of The JUNTO Podcast, BFF Co-Founder Phil Linderman hosts a conversation with Robert Destro and Al Gombis, both BFF Fellows and longtime State Department officials, on the state of human rights diplomacy in Washington.

Robert Destro, former Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), and Al Gombis, who served as Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, share a candid insider’s perspective on how well-intentioned policies have drifted away from America’s founding ideals.

Together, they discuss why “human rights” must be refocused around freedom of conscience, individual responsibility, and equal justice under law — and how diplomats can rebuild credibility by linking human rights to measurable progress, not political agendas.

In this episode of The JUNTO Podcast, BFF Chairman Phil Linderman speaks with Albert T. “Al” Gombis, a recently retired U.S. diplomat whose 34-year career at the Department of State spanned 13 offices, three overseas posts, and senior leadership roles advancing global justice and human rights.

From serving on Capitol Hill as a State Department Fellow for the House Foreign Affairs Committee to leading the Office of Global Criminal Justice, Gombis’s career bridges law, policy, and principle. He later earned a master’s degree in Cyber and National Security from the National Defense University, before being appointed by the Trump Administration as Acting Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy & Human Rights.

In this wide-ranging and candid conversation, Gombis reflects on:

• His 34-year journey through diplomacy, law, State Dept., DOD/DOJ and public service
• Lessons learned working across the State Department and Congress
• The influence of the Reagan era on his decision to serve
• What it means to be an effective and principled bureaucrat
• What brought him to The Ben Franklin Fellowship and his response to partisan critics
• True diversity in public service — and the realities of wokeism, DEI, and reform efforts within recent administrations
• An Idealist's path forward for U.S. diplomacy rooted in the national interest

In this thought-provoking discussion with host and fellow former Senior Foreign Service Officer Phil Linderman, Al Gombis offers a rare insider’s perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing America’s foreign policy establishment — and the enduring need to restore mission clarity, moral courage, and accountability to the State Department.

Through his career and example, Al Gombis exemplifies the mission of The Ben Franklin Fellowship: diplomacy rooted in the Republic, and in service to America.