1. Richard Allen Grenell was born on September 18,1966 and is an American diplomat, public official, and former public relations consultant who has served as special presidential envoy for special missions since 2025.
54 Facts About Richard Grenell
1. 2.
Richard Grenell previously served as the United States ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021.
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Richard Grenell presented his credentials to the president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on May 8,2018.
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Trump named Richard Grenell acting director of national intelligence in February 2020; he relinquished the role in May 2020 upon the confirmation of John Ratcliffe to the post.
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Richard Grenell graduated with a bachelor's degree in government and public administration from Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri.
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Richard Grenell received a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's John F Kennedy School of Government.
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In 2001, Grenell was appointed by President George W Bush as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for the United States permanent representative to the United Nations in New York with the rank of Minister-Counselor.
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In 2009, Richard Grenell founded Capitol Media Partners, an international strategic media and public affairs consultancy.
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Richard Grenell was under contract as a Fox News contributor, commenting on foreign affairs and the media.
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Richard Grenell has written for The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, CNN, Politico, Huffington Post, The Washington Times, and Al Jazeera.
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Richard Grenell worked for Republican candidate Mitt Romney as a spokesperson, during his 2012 presidential campaign, making him the first openly gay person in that role for a Republican presidential candidate.
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In 2016, Richard Grenell's consulting firm accepted more than $100,000 from the Magyar Foundation of North America to provide public relations support for the Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
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Richard Grenell did not disclose this payment under the Foreign Agents Registration Act prior to his work in the Trump administration.
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Richard Grenell deleted all of his negative tweets about Trump after Trump became the Republican nominee.
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Richard Grenell then began praising Trump regularly on Fox News and on Twitter.
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In September 2017, Trump nominated Richard Grenell to become the United States ambassador to Germany.
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Richard Grenell was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on May 3,2018, making him the highest-ranking openly gay US ambassador.
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Richard Grenell was under consideration for the posts of US ambassador to NATO and US ambassador to the United Nations, the latter position being filled by Ambassador Kelly Craft.
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Richard Grenell presented his credentials to the president of Germany on May 8,2018.
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The leader of Germany's Social Democratic Party said that Richard Grenell "does appear to need some tutoring" in the "fine art of diplomacy", while the Left Party urged the Merkel government to summon Richard Grenell to explain his comments.
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Richard Grenell stirred controversy in June 2018 by telling Breitbart News, "I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders".
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Richard Grenell was a regular contributor on Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tonight during the first few months of his ambassadorship in Germany.
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Richard Grenell contrasted Merkel with the recently elected Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz, who "won in a very big way" because of his strict stance on immigration.
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Richard Grenell's perceived interference in German politics drew criticism from several high-ranking German politicians.
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In March 2019, Wolfgang Kubicki, Vice President of the Bundestag and deputy chairman of the Free Democratic Party, charged Richard Grenell with acting "like a high commissioner of an occupying power" and called for Richard Grenell to be expelled from Germany.
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In December 2018, during the furor surrounding Der Spiegel writer Claas Relotius, who it turned out had been fabricating stories for years, Richard Grenell wrote to the magazine complaining about an anti-American institutional bias, and asked for an independent investigation.
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In January 2019, Richard Grenell told Handelsblatt that European companies participating in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline are "always in danger, because sanctions are always possible".
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Richard Grenell threatened to sanction German companies involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2.
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The sources claimed that Richard Grenell knew little "about Germany and Europe, that he ignores most of the dossiers his colleagues at the embassy write for him, and that his knowledge of the subject matter is superficial".
30.
In February 2019, it was announced that Richard Grenell was leading the Trump administration's newly formed effort to promote the decriminalization of homosexuality in nations in which homosexuality was illegal.
31.
On May 25,2020, after John Ratcliffe was confirmed, Richard Grenell confirmed he would resign as ambassador in the coming weeks.
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Richard Grenell continued serving part-time as special envoy after his resignation as ambassador, working from the White House.
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Richard Grenell organized a new summit, located at the White House, for September 3 and 4,2020.
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In September 2020, Richard Grenell traveled to Kosovo to receive the Presidential Medal of Merits from President Thaci.
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Richard Grenell's tenure ended with the end of the Trump presidency on January 20,2021.
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The nomination allowed Richard Grenell to stay on as Acting Director pending Ratcliffe's confirmation.
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Richard Grenell enacted a hiring freeze at ODNI and ordered a review of the agency's personnel and mission.
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Also on May 15, Richard Grenell announced that ODNI would lead election security threat briefings for 2020 presidential candidates, replacing the FBI.
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Richard Grenell played a role in the release of 57 transcripts of Russia probe interviews by the House Intelligence Committee.
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On May 12,2020, Richard Grenell declassified the names of Obama administration officials who unmasked Michael Flynn.
41.
On May 19,2020, Richard Grenell declassified an email that Obama's national security advisor Susan Rice sent to herself.
42.
That month, Richard Grenell became a senior advisor to the Republican National Committee, focusing on outreach to LGBT voters.
43.
In 2021, Richard Grenell was hired as on-air analyst and contributor by Newsmax.
44.
Richard Grenell was criticized for "snarky" tweets about various public women and that he is openly gay.
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On November 5,2020, Richard Grenell appeared as a speaker of the Trump campaign press conference in Las Vegas, pushing the local effort to overturn the presidential election Donald Trump had lost and announcing a federal lawsuit against "illegal" votes.
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Richard Grenell made allegations of fraud, claiming that non-residents and people who were long dead had voted in Nevada and accusing the state of covering up these incidents.
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Richard Grenell sought to build support for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign among Libertarian activists and donors.
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In June 2020, Richard Grenell was made a senior fellow at the Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Politics and Strategy in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
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Richard Grenell is to work on two projects, a report on the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality and various campus-engagement projects about the changing face of Europe.
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Richard Grenell's position as Senior Fellow is for one year and is a non-teaching position.
51.
On January 31,2025, Richard Grenell travelled to Caracas, Venezuela, to meet with Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro allegedly to discuss Trump's deportation strategy for accepting undocumented immigrants.
52.
Richard Grenell discussed the matter with Romanian Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at the 61st Munich Security Conference.
53.
Also in February 2025, the German tabloid Bild reported that Richard Grenell was conducting secret negotiations with Russia in Switzerland to reopen the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
54.
In June 2013, Richard Grenell revealed that he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and started chemotherapy.