Ambassadors of the United States are persons nominated by the president to serve as the country's diplomatic representatives to foreign nations, international organizations, and as ambassadors-at-large. Under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, their appointment must be confirmed by the United States Senate; while an ambassador may be appointed during a recess, they can serve only until the end of the next session of Congress, unless subsequently confirmed.
Ryan Clark Crocker is a retired American diplomat who served as a career ambassador within the United States Foreign Service. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he served as United States ambassador to Afghanistan (2011–2012), Iraq (2007–2009), Pakistan (2004–2007), Syria (1998–2001), Kuwait (1994–1997), and Lebanon (1990–1993). In January 2010, he became dean of Texas A&M University's George Bush School of Government and Public Service.
James Franklin Jeffrey is an American diplomat who served most recently as the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement and the Special Envoy to the International military intervention against ISIL.
Ron Dermer is an American-born Israeli political consultant and diplomat serving as the Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs. He previously served as the Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 2013 to 2021. Zachy Hennessy of the Jerusalem Post called Dermer "one of the most consequential ambassadors from Israel to the United States", and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America called him "one of the most creative and influential ambassadors from any country during his time in Washington".
David Michael Satterfield is an American diplomat and ambassador, who has served extensively in the Middle East, including the Persian Gulf area, Lebanon, and Iraq. He later served as a senior advisor on Iraq for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and was director general of the Multinational Force and Observers, the peacekeeping force for the Sinai Peninsula from June 2009 until August 2017. He was chargé d'affaires to Egypt from August 2013 to January 2014 and was subsequently Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Libya. From September 2017 to June 2019 he served as the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Turkey on June 27, 2019.
Michele Jeanne Sison is an American diplomat and career member of the Senior Foreign Service serving as the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. She has previously served in various other diplomatic posts around the world on behalf of the United States, including ambassador to Haiti. Sison holds the personal rank of career ambassador.
Robert Bigger Oakley was an American diplomat whose 34-year career (1957–1991) as a Foreign Service Officer included appointments as United States Ambassador to Zaire, Somalia, and Pakistan and, in the early 1990s, as a special envoy during the American involvement in Somalia.
William Brockenbrough Taylor Jr. is an American diplomat, government official, and former military officer. He served as the 6th United States ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 under President Bush and Obama, and as chargé d’affaires to Ukraine from June 2019 to January 2020 under President Trump.
Marie Louise "Masha" Yovanovitch is a Canadian-American former diplomat and retired senior member of the United States Foreign Service. She served in multiple State Department posts, including Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (2004–2005), U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005–2008), U.S. Ambassador to Armenia (2008–2011), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (2012–2013), and Ambassador to Ukraine (2016–2019). Yovanovitch is a diplomat in residence at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. On January 31, 2020 it was reported that she had retired from the State Department.
Philip Thomas Reeker is an American diplomat and career foreign service officer with the Department of State who currently serves as the senior advisor for Caucasus negotiations. He was previously Chargé d'affaires of the United States mission to the United Kingdom from 2021 to 2022 and acting assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs from 2019 to 2021.
Kurt Douglas Volker is an American diplomat who served as George W. Bush's last U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Later he served as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership and in a volunteer capacity as Donald J. Trump's U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine until his resignation on September 27, 2019.
Peter Michael McKinley is an American diplomat. A career Foreign Service Officer, McKinley served as U.S. Ambassador to Peru (2007–2010), Colombia (2010–2013), Afghanistan (2015–2016), and Brazil (2017–2018), and then as Senior Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State (2018–2019).
Gordon David Sondland is an American businessman. He is the founder and chairman of Provenance Hotels. He also served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018 to 2020. In November 2019, Sondland testified as a witness at the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. He was fired by Trump on February 7, 2020, two days after the conclusion of Trump's impeachment trial.
Joseph Estey Macmanus is an American diplomat who served as Executive Secretary of the United States Department of State from 2014 to 2017. Prior to that, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna from 2012 to 2014, as well as interim coordinator for efforts to implement President Barack Obama's Iran Nuclear Deal in 2015. He was President Donald Trump's nominee to become United States Ambassador to Colombia. This nomination was reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in May 2018, but was returned to the President at the close of the 115th Congress without consideration by the full Senate. In May 2019, it was announced that Philip Goldberg would replace Macmanus as nominee to be the next United States Ambassador to Colombia.
Brett H. McGurk is an American diplomat, attorney, and academic who served in senior national security positions under presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, and is currently the Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and the National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, in the Biden administration.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield is an American diplomat who is the United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Joe Biden. She served as the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 2013 to 2017. Thomas-Greenfield then worked in the private sector as a senior vice president at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington, D.C.
Thomas Ulrich Brechbuhl is a Swiss-American businessman and former government official, having held the position of Counselor of the United States Department of State from May 1, 2018, to January 20, 2021. He was appointed by and reported to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and replaced Maliz E. Beams. Along with the role of Counselor, he served as the Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the Department of State from March to September 2020.
Jennifer Leigh Williams is an American United States Department of State official who has served as a special advisor to U.S. vice president Mike Pence on European and Russian affairs. Williams testified under subpoena, in the impeachment hearings of Donald Trump, in closed-door hearings before the House intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees on November 9, 2019. She gave public testimony to the House of Representatives ten days later.
David Holmes is an American diplomat who served as a counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine circa 2019-2020. He is at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service as Senior State Department Fellow, as of 2022.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first half of 2019, but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
