1. John Podesta is the former president and now chair and counselor of the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington, DC, as well as a visiting professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and was chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
John Podesta spent most of his early years in Chicago, where he was born, growing up in the neighborhood of Jefferson Park on the city's Northwest Side.
John Podesta's father did not graduate from high school, but encouraged his children to attend college.
In 1967, John Podesta graduated from Lane Tech High School in Chicago.
John Podesta met Bill Clinton in 1970 when they worked in Connecticut for Joseph Duffey, a candidate for the United States Senate.
John Podesta received his JD from Georgetown University Law Center in 1976.
John Podesta worked as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice's Honors Program in the Land and Natural Resources Division, and as a Special Assistant to the Director of ACTION, the Federal volunteer agency.
John Podesta held positions on Capitol Hill, including Counselor to Democratic Leader Senator Thomas Daschle ; Chief Counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee ; Chief Minority Counsel for the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks; Security and Terrorism; and Regulatory Reform; and Counsel on the Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
John Podesta served as both an assistant to the president and as deputy chief of staff.
John Podesta was the first White House staffer to get the news of the Lewinsky scandal and was put in charge of managing the crisis.
John Podesta encouraged Executive Order 12958, which led to efforts to declassify millions of pages from the US diplomatic and national security history.
In 2003, John Podesta founded the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, DC, and served as its president and CEO until he stepped down in 2011.
John Podesta has taught at his alma mater, Georgetown University Law Center, many times over the years, teaching classes on congressional investigations, law and technology, legislation, copyright and public-interest law.
From 2002 to 2014, John Podesta served as a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.
John Podesta can be seen in numerous widely circulated photographs of Clinton meeting with Kim Jong-il.
John Podesta opposes the excessive use of classification, and in a 2004 speech at Princeton University condemned what he called the US's "excessive government secrecy" and "bloated secrecy bureaucracy".
John Podesta is described as "a longtime advocate for government disclosure of UFO files".
John Podesta has supported petitions by some who believe UFOs are alien spacecraft to the government to release files related to the subject.
John Podesta became an honorary patron of the University Philosophical Society in March 2006.
John Podesta is an emeritus member of the Knox College Board of Trustees.
John Podesta has served on the board of the Portland, Oregon-based Equilibrium Capital.
In 2013, John Podesta earned $90,000 as a consultant to the West Chester, Pennsylvania-based HJW Foundation, a nonprofit group led by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss.
John Podesta was the US representative to the UN High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
John Podesta left to succeed John Kerry in the role of US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate in 2024.
John Podesta said that Russian intelligence officials attempting to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump were behind the leak.
John Podesta is Catholic and has worked with Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United.