Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform and previously served as Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

[3][4] During the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy ordered that State Department employees in Europe be barred from attending Senator Barack Obama's speech in Berlin on July 24, 2008, to ensure they displayed political neutrality.

He knew his mission was vital to U.S. interests and values, and was an investment that would pay off in a strong partnership with a free Libya.The Republican minority on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence alleged that Kennedy, as Under Secretary for Management, failed to approve requests for additional security in Benghazi and Tripoli, and failed to implement recommendations regarding high-risk diplomatic posts that had been issued after the bombings of embassies in 1998.

[7] On June 10, 2013, CBS News reported that a memo from an official in the State Department inspector general's office alleged that the then-current ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, was ditching his security detail to engage prostitutes and underage children, and further alleged that Patrick F. Kennedy had killed the original investigation in order to protect Ambassador Gutman and maybe others.

[8] On June 11, 2013, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed that the allegation regarding Kennedy was under active investigation by an independent inspector general.

One of the interviews alleges that Patrick F. Kennedy "pressured" the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to declassify an email from Hillary Clinton's private server in exchange for a "quid pro quo" of placing more agents in certain countries.

[12][13] The FBI stated that the email's classification status was re-reviewed and remained unchanged and denied quid pro quo accusations.