Thomas E. Donilon

After graduating from Catholic University, Donilon began working in the Carter White House in the Congressional Relations Office. At age 24, Donilon managed the 1980 Democratic Convention, at which Senator Edward Kennedy challenged President Carter for the nomination. A profile from 1980 described him as, “one of those Wunderkinder who spring out of nowhere to become driving forces in politics.” [10] Carter successfully defeated Kennedy’s challenge for the nomination but lost the general election. In 1981, Donilon temporarily moved to Georgia to manage the former president’s transition to private life.[11]

In 1983, Donilon worked on Walter Mondale’s presidential campaign, as the national campaign coordinator and convention director.[12] Donilon prepared Mondale for his presidential debates. [13] Donilon met his wife, Catherine Russell, on the Mondale campaign.[14]

During the first Bush administration, Donilon was recruited to the law firm O’Melveny and Meyers by Warren Christopher, a partner at the firm.

When Warren Christopher became Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, Donilon worked as his chief of staff and as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, from 1993 to 1996. According to the Washington Post, in the Clinton administration, Donilon was "intimately involved in many major foreign policy issues, including negotiating the Bosnian peace agreement and the expansion of NATO"..[15] During the Srebrenica massacre, Donilon advocated intervention and lobbied members of Congress and worked with allies to approve intervention.[14]

Donilon worked as Executive Vice President for Law and Policy at Fannie Mae, the federally chartered mortgage finance company, as a registered lobbyist from 1999 through 2005.[15][16]

Before his appointment to the Obama Administration, Donilon was a partner in the Washington office of the law firm O'Melveny & Myers, where he advised companies and their boards on a range of "sensitive governance, policy, legal and regulatory matters".[17]

Donilon was a prominent advocate of the Obama administration’s “pivot” or rebalance to Asia.[22] Donilon described the policy in a speech at the Asia Society in 2013: “The United States is implementing a comprehensive, multidimensional strategy: strengthening alliances; deepening partnerships with emerging powers; building a stable, productive, and constructive relationship with China; empowering regional institutions; and helping to build a regional economic architecture that can sustain shared prosperity.”[23]

Donilon was also critical of China at times. In 2013, in a speech to the Asia Society, Donilon said "Increasingly, U.S. businesses are speaking out about their serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber-intrusions on an unprecedented scale." Donilon said China must recognize the risk such activities pose to the reputation of Chinese industry, to bilateral relations and to international trade. Beijing, he said, must also "take serious steps to investigate" allegations of hacking.[24]

Before leaving the Obama Administration, Donilon coordinated a two-day informal summit between President Xi Jinping and Obama held in Sunnylands, California, in June 2013.[25]

Thomas Donilon, U.S. National Security Advisor, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. in November 2012

Donilon supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he called “the most important trade negotiation under way in the world today and the economic centerpiece of the rebalance” to Asia. In 2013, Donilon wrote of the importance of renewable energy: “climate change, driven by the world’s use of energy, presents not just a transcendent challenge for the world but a present-day national security threat to the United States."[26]

Donilon helped negotiate the New START Treaty in 2011.[27] He met with Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly after his election in 2012. [28]

In April 2016, Obama appointed Donilon as Chair of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. The Commission’s report, which was released in December of that year, made recommendations for enhancing cybersecurity in the United States. In 2017, Donilon wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which he provided recommendations for “hack-proofing” future elections from foreign meddling.[29]