Patrick Kennedy
Under Secretary of State for Management
In office
November 15, 2007  January 26, 2017
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Barack Obama
Donald Trump
Preceded byHenrietta Fore
Succeeded byBrian Bulatao
In office
September 1, 1996  August 20, 1997
Acting
PresidentBill Clinton
Preceded byRichard Moose
Succeeded byBonnie Cohen
United States Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform
In office
September 2001  May 2005
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byDonald Hayes
Succeeded byMark Wallace
Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security
Acting
In office
January 31, 1998  August 11, 1998
PresidentBill Clinton
Preceded byEric Boswell
Succeeded byDavid Carpenter
Assistant Secretary of State for Administration
In office
May 20, 1993  July 13, 2001
PresidentBill Clinton
George W. Bush
Preceded byArthur Fort
Succeeded byWilliam Eaton
Personal details
Born
Patrick Francis Kennedy

(1949-06-22) June 22, 1949
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
SpouseMary Swope
EducationGeorgetown University (BS)

Patrick Francis Kennedy (born June 22, 1949)[1] is a former career Foreign Service Officer who served as the U.S. State Department's Under Secretary of State for Management. He was Director of the Office of Management Policy, Rightsizing and Innovation. He has been Deputy Director for Management at the cabinet level Office of the Director of National Intelligence; he returned to the Department of State on May 7, 2007. Kennedy was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform and previously served as Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He was the Assistant Secretary of State for Administration for the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 2001. In 2014, Kennedy was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.[2]

Diplomatic career

Kennedy holds a B.S.F.S. degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University where he was a member of the Philodemic Society. After graduating, Kennedy joined the United States Foreign Service. Kennedy then served as a Personnel Officer at the Bureau of African Affairs, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Management, Supervisory General Services Officer at the Embassy of the United States in Paris, Executive Director and Deputy Executive Secretary of the United States Department of State, Administrate Counselor at the Embassy Of The United States in Cairo, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration, Acting Under Secretary of State for Management, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations for Management and Reform.

Kennedy then served as Chief of Staff of the Coalition Provisional Authority and Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq. In the intelligence sector, Kennedy served as Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Management. Kennedy then returned to the State Department as the Under Secretary of State for Management, serving during three presidential administrations.

Blackwater investigation

In 2007, Patrick F. Kennedy chaired an investigation into the behavior of Blackwater Worldwide, following the Nisour Square shooting.[3][4]

Election of 2008

During the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy ordered that State Department employees in Europe be barred from attending Senator Barack Obama's speech in Berlin on July 24, 2008, to ensure they displayed political neutrality. Kennedy labeled Obama's visit as a partisan political activity.[5]

Benghazi affair

Kennedy's role in diplomatic security decisions has come under scrutiny from politicians since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi in 2012. Kennedy testified to the House Oversight Committee on October 10, 2012, about the death of Chris Stevens.[6] He testified that, after the October 2011 fall of Gaddafi, the government of Libya was in flux, and that Stevens first arrived in Benghazi "during the height of the revolution", which occurred between February 17 and October 23, 2011, "when the city was the heart of the opposition to Colonel Qadhafi and the rebels there were fighting for their lives." At that time he was Special Representative to the National Transitional Council. Stevens returned to Libya as ambassador in June 2012, and was killed on September 11 of that year.

Ambassador Stevens understood that the State Department must operate in many places where the U.S. military cannot or does not, where there are no other boots on the ground, where there are serious threats to our security. And he understood that the new Libya was being born in Benghazi and that it was critical that the United States have an active presence there. That is why Ambassador Stevens stayed in Benghazi during those difficult days. And it's why he kept returning as the Libyan people began their difficult transition to democracy. He knew his mission was vital to U.S. interests and values, and was an investment that would pay off in a strong partnership with a free Libya.

The Republican minority on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence alleged that Kennedy, as Under Secretary for Management, failed to approve requests for additional security in Benghazi and Tripoli, and failed to implement recommendations regarding high-risk diplomatic posts that had been issued after the bombings of embassies in 1998.[7]

Investigation of the ambassador to Belgium

On June 10, 2013, CBS News reported that a memo from an official in the State Department inspector general's office alleged that the then-current ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, was ditching his security detail to engage prostitutes and underage children, and further alleged that Patrick F. Kennedy had killed the original investigation in order to protect Ambassador Gutman and maybe others.[8] On June 11, 2013, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed that the allegation regarding Kennedy was under active investigation by an independent inspector general.[9][10] In October 2014, Gutman was cleared by the investigation and the State Department issued an apology for the allegations.[11]

Hillary Clinton email investigation

On October 17, 2016, the FBI released interviews related to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. One of the interviews alleges that Patrick F. Kennedy "pressured" the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to declassify an email from Hillary Clinton's private server in exchange for a "quid pro quo" of placing more agents in certain countries.[12][13] The FBI stated that the email's classification status was re-reviewed and remained unchanged and denied quid pro quo accusations. The State Department called the allegations "inaccurate" and maintained that Kennedy was trying to "understand" the FBI's classification process.[12]

Resignation

On January 26, 2017, when Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump's nominee for United States Secretary of State, visited the United States State Department, Kennedy, Joyce Anne Barr, Michele Bond, and Gentry O. Smith were all simultaneously asked to resign from the department.[14]

See also

References

  1. "Patrick Francis Kennedy". U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. November 15, 2007. Retrieved November 16, 2015.
  2. Incorporated, Prime. "National Academy of Public Administration". National Academy of Public Administration. Retrieved 2023-03-06.
  3. "Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater", The New York Times, 29 June 2014. Retrieved on 1 July 2014.
  4. Hudson, John. "Blackwater Bombshell Raises Questions for State Department Heavyweight", Foreign Policy, 30 June 2014. Retrieved on 1 July 2014.
  5. DeYoung, Karen (24 July 2008). "Berlin Rally Is Off-Limits for Embassy Workers". Retrieved 18 October 2016 via washingtonpost.com.
  6. "UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE PATRICK KENNEDY - TESTIMONY TO THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE - WASHINGTON, DC - WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2012" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 6, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
  7. U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Review of the Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, Libya, September 11-12 2012
  8. "State Department memo reveals possible cover-ups, halted investigations". CBS News. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  9. "Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 6/11/2013". whitehouse.gov. 11 June 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2016 via National Archives.
  10. "New U.S. Amb. to Belgium Announced After Accusations of Soliciting Underage Prostitutes". 21 June 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  11. "Gutman krijgt excuses van Buitenlandse Zaken". De Standaard. 24 October 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  12. 1 2 Topan, Tal (17 October 2016). "FBI and State Department say there was no quid pro quo over Clinton email". CNN. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
  13. "Email Investigation Reveals Quid Pro Quo Deal Proposed By State Official". International Business Times. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
  14. Labott, Elise (January 27, 2017). "Trump administration asks top State Department officials to leave". CNN.
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