She then clerked for Judge Damon Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1991, and was appointed to the Wayne County Corporation Counsel in 1995.

[1] After leaving public office, Granholm took a position at the UC Berkeley and, with her husband Daniel Mulhern, wrote A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Future, released in 2011.

[3] After President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Granholm to head the United States Department of Energy in 2020,[4] she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021.

[8] Her paternal grandfather was Hugo "Anders" Granholm, who immigrated to Penny, British Columbia, Canada, in the late 1920s from Robertsfors, Sweden, where his father was the mayor.

She came with the ship SS Bergensfjord from Oslo to Halifax, and from there she took the railway to Penny, British Columbia, where her uncles and several others had established a small logging village.

[8] During a year in France, she helped to smuggle clothes and medical supplies to Jewish people in the Soviet Union[8] and became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Unopposed for the Democratic nomination, she faced Republican John Smietanka, the 1994 nominee and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, in the general election.

The campaign began as a relatively friendly one,[18] with both agreeing that they wanted to expand the Internet Crimes Unit, start neighborhood-based crime-fighting programmes and continue working as a consumer advocate, as Kelley had done.

[17] He also tried to link Granholm to Democratic gubernatorial nominee Geoffrey Fieger's crime plan, which called for greater emphasis on rehabilitation for non-violent criminals and shortening their prison terms.

[17][19] For his part, Smietanka was angered by Democratic advertisements that referred to late child support payments he had made and claimed that he had lied about how much of his own money he donated to his campaign.

In office, she continued Kelley's work on protecting citizens and consumers' rights and established Michigan's first High Tech Crime Unit, appointing Terrence Berg as its first chief.

[24] In April 1999, Granholm announced a lawsuit against RVP Development, builders of the Arcadia Bluffs Golf Course, alleging that poor construction of the course had led to illegal discharges of sediment into Lake Michigan from erosion following heavy storms in 1998, which had "turned a ravine into a ravaged gorge".

[25] Development company President Richard Postma refused to pay the $425,000 of state fines, saying he had made moves to stop the erosion and accused Granholm of trying to make him "a poster child for her campaign of the future".

Blanchard had been defeated for reelection by Engler in 1990 and Bonior had resigned as Democratic whip to run for governor, his House district having been redrawn to make it all but unwinnable for him.

[34] Granholm, seen by many as a "fresh face" after the 12-year Engler administration, raised more money than Blanchard and Bonior and consistently led them in polls by large margins.

[37] Granholm was the heavy favorite in the general election, boasting strong support from working women, African-Americans and voters under 30 years of age.

[38] Despite the 2002 elections being a good year for Republicans nationwide, who gained control of the U.S. Senate and increased their hold on the U.S. House, Granholm defeated Posthumus by 1,633,796 votes (51.42%) to 1,506,104 (47.40%).

In 2004 she asked Lieutenant Governor John D. Cherry to lead the Commission on Higher Education and Economic Growth to double the number of college graduates in Michigan.

During the 2004 presidential election in Michigan, Granholm campaigned hard for Democratic nominee John Kerry after early polls showed President George W. Bush with a narrow lead.

She cited the economy as the main concern for Michiganders, not the Iraq War or the War on Terror, which meant that with "the deficit larger; the Dow dropping; unemployment claims up, hitting an all-time high; General Motors profits below expectations, with health claims crippling profits; flu vaccine in short supply; oil prices rising" her state was badly hit.

[86][91] In October 2011, Current TV announced that she would be joining its new political primetime lineup as host of the new program The War Room with Jennifer Granholm.

[92] In October 2012, she became a "household name" after delivering what has been described as a "hyperactive"[93] and "sharp-tongued"[94] speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 6.

Granholm's speech centered on the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010; specifically, President Obama's decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, its beneficial effects on the U.S. economy, and Mitt Romney's opposition to the bailout.

[108] She attended a CAFE standards meeting at the White House on May 19 and spoke with Obama, but officials would not comment on whether the two discussed a potential court appointment.

After the retirement of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens in May 2010, Granholm was again spoken of as a potential candidate;[110] Obama chose Elena Kagan, who was confirmed in August.

In March 2011, with Tim Kaine poised to resign as chairman of the Democratic National Committee to run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia in 2012, Granholm was mentioned as a potential successor.

"[128] On May 19, 2022, the Department of Energy announced a $3.5 billion program funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create four large-scale regional direct air capture hubs each consisting of a network of carbon dioxide removal projects.

[131] In late 2021, she blamed the OPEC oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. gas and petroleum industry for rising fuel prices in the United States.

[136] On December 16, 2022, Granholm cleared J. Robert Oppenheimer, American theoretical physicist, often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project – the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons, of the 1954 revocation of his security clearance due to a "flawed investigation".

[137][138] While Granholm was at Harvard, she met fellow law student and Michigan native Daniel Mulhern, a theology graduate from Yale University.