Macmanus, Joseph Estey, 1953-

<p>Joseph Estey Macmanus (born 1953) 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.</p>

<p>Macmanus is a career foreign service officer, having entered the Foreign Service Institute in 1986. In his time at the State Department, he served as top aides to former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs from 2005-2008, and again from 2011-2012.</p>

<p>President Barack Obama appointed Macmanus to serve as U.S. Representative to the Vienna Office of the United Nations, as well as its representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 2011. He came to international attention in 2013 when he accused Iran of deception at a meeting of the IAEA, and then, with the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand envoys, stormed out of the meeting after Iran criticised Israel.</p>

<p>On November 29, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Macmanus to serve as the United States Ambassador to Colombia. His nomination as Ambassador drew criticism from Senate Republicans who did not want President Trump to nominate someone who worked closely with former Secretary Hillary Clinton. In May 2019, it was announced that Philip Goldberg would replace Macmanus as nominee to be the next United States Ambassador to Colombia.</p>

<p>Joseph Estey Macmanus, nominated November 29, 2017, to be the next ambassador to Colombia from the United States, has more than 30 years’ experience in the Foreign Service, has participated in difficult negotiations with foreign adversaries and helped to run the Department of State. Although his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was held on March 7, 2018, his confirmation was blocked by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). The reason? He was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s executive assisatant, and he was supported by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.</p>

<p>Macmanus was born in 1953 to Joseph and Miriam Macmanus and has three brothers and two sisters, including his twin, Mary. He grew up in Buffalo, New York, but left the area for college, attending Notre Dame. He earned a B.A. in English there in 1974, and then returned home and earned a master’s in information science from State University of New York in Buffalo, although his date of graduation could not be confirmed.</p>

<p>Macmanus joined the Foreign Service via the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in 1986. His first posting was in El Salvador. In February 1989, Macmanus, as the U.S. embassy’s spokesman, defended the Reagan administration’s aid to the Salvadoran government by claiming that the government and the Salvadoran military had not been involved in death squad activity for the previous seven years, when, in fact, they had been. Macmanus was subsequently sent to Mexico, Poland and Belgium. From 1995 to 1999, he was in Washington as the assistant to USIA’s deputy director.</p>

<p>Much of Macmanus’ career has been spent helping to administer the Department of State. In 2005, he was deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Three years later, Macmanus became executive assistant to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He continued in that job after Hillary Clinton took over the department in 2009.</p>

<p>In 2011, Macmanus was named principal deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs. He served in this capacity until the following year, when he once again became Clinton’s executive assistant. Macmanus had that job on September 11, 2012, when the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked. Because he was one of Clinton’s closest associates, he was involved with the official response to the attacks.</p>

<p>In November 2012, Macmanus was named permanent representative to the United Nations mission in Vienna and to the International Atomic Energy Agency. There, he participated in negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal. During a March 2013 negotiating session, Iran accused Israel of genocide. Macmanus, along with representatives of Canada and Australia, stormed out of the session in protest. After the agreement was finalized, however, Secretary of State John Kerry named Macmanus to coordinate implementation of the deal with Iran.</p>

<p>Since 2014, Macmanus has served as executive secretary in the Department of State, working as liaison and the clearinghouse between the department’s bureaus and the offices of the secretary, the deputy secretaries, and the director of policy planning.</p>

<p>Macmanus and his wife, Carol, have a son, Chris. Macmanus speaks Polish, French and Spanish.</p>