Amb. Todd Robinson to be Asst Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs

April 22, 2021 By in Ambassadors, Biden, FSOs, Functional Bureaus, Nominations, Officially In, State Department Tags: , ,

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On April 12, President Biden announced his intent to nominate former Ambassador Todd Robinson to be the next Assistant Secretary of State for INL. The WH released the following brief bio:
Todd Robinson, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State
Todd Robinson, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Career Minister, currently serves as Director of the International Student Management Office, National Defense University.  He was a Senior Advisor for Central America in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in Washington. D.C.  Robinson also served as Chargé d’Affaires a.i. in Caracas, Venezuela.  Previously, Robinson was U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Guatemala from 2014 to 2017.  Prior to that, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.  Robinson also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala; as Consul General and Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Barcelona, Spain; and as Chief of the Political and Economic Section in the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania.  Other overseas postings include the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Vatican City, Italy, El Salvador, and Colombia.  Earlier in his career, Robinson served in the Department’s Operations Center and as a Special Assistant to former Secretary of State Albright.  He is the recipient of a Presidential Rank Award.  A native of New Jersey, he is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and speaks Spanish, Italian, and Albanian.
According to history.state.gov,  Congress, in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for fiscal Year 1979 (P.L. 95-426; 92 Stat. 969), authorized the position of Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, to be responsible for the overall coordination of the role of the Department of State in the international aspects of narcotics problems in 1978.  The Department of State first supported the Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of Narcotics in 1909. The title of this position was changed from International Narcotics Matters to International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Feb 10, 1995.
If confirmed, Ambassador Robinson would succeed Kirsten Madison who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2018. Previous career appointees to this position include Anne Woods Patterson (2005–2007); David Timothy Johnson (2007–2011); and William R. Brownfield (2011–2017).

 

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