Richard Grenell, former U.S. ambassador and acting national intelligence director, joins CMU’s Institute for Politics and Strategy
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Richard Grenell, the Trump administration’s former ambassador to Germany and former acting director of national intelligence, has joined Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy as a senior fellow.
Grenell will be based in the institute’s Washington, D.C. office but will spend time in Pittsburgh working with faculty and students, according to a CMU statement.
“The offices of the Institute for Politics and Strategy in Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., have a proven track record for convening leaders throughout the world for research, teaching and discussion on some of the most pressing global problems,” Grenell said. “It is an honor to join Professor Kiron Skinner and her IPS colleagues to help develop projects concentrating on the new Europe and the global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.”
Grenell, who is openly gay, has long worked on global initiatives to decriminalize homosexuality.
Under President George W. Bush, Grenell spent eight years as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations. During the Obama years, he opened a public affairs consultancy and became a presence on Fox News; during the 2012 presidential campaign, he was foreign policy spokesman for Mitt Romney.
He is well known for a combative style and using social media extensively to advance arguments.
In the Trump administration, Grenell became ambassador to Germany in 2018. In February , he was called to serve simultaneously as director of national intelligence, the position overseeing all 17 agencies in the intelligence community. With the confirmation of John Ratcliffe as DNI in May, Grenell stepped down and also resigned as ambassador.
“Ambassador Ric Grenell’s role as acting director of the Office of National Intelligence has given him a unique understanding of the complexities facing the intelligence community and how to address them,” said IPS Director Kiron Skinner. She took leave from CMU to serve in the Trump administration as the State Department’s director of policy planning from 2018 to 2019.