RANCHO MIRAGE (CNS) – President Donald Trump Tuesday nominated Palm Springs resident Richard Grenell, who served for several months this year as acting director of national intelligence, to serve as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Presidential appointees serve a five-year term on the council, which meets twice a year to oversee the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Grenell served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany before his brief tenure overseeing the nation’s 17 spy agencies, an appointment which made him the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level post. He previously served as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Council was established by Congress in 1980 to spearhead the creation of Holocaust Memorial Museum, which opened in 1993. Trump previously nominated other allies to the council, including Andrew Giuliani, the son of the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani.
Grenell’s latest appointment was one more than three dozen announced Tuesday by the White House. Other Trump supporters named to high-profile boards included former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who was tapped for the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.