A member of the Republican Party, Grenell served as the United States ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020 and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021.

[5][6][7] Trump named Grenell acting director of national intelligence in February 2020; he relinquished the role in May 2020 upon the confirmation of John Ratcliffe to the post.

[9][10][11] Prior to his service at the State Department, Grenell was a political adviser to a number of Republicans, including George Pataki and Dave Camp.

During his tenure, Grenell promulgated U.S. official position and strategy on such issues as the War on Terror, global peacekeeping operations, nuclear proliferation, and the UN Oil for Food corruption scandal.

[16][17] Grenell has written for The Wall Street Journal,[18][19] CBS News,[20][21] CNN,[22] Politico,[23] Huffington Post,[24] The Washington Times,[25] and Al Jazeera.

[27][28] Grenell was a signatory to a 2013 amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.

[29] In 2016, Grenell's consulting firm accepted more than $100,000 from the Magyar Foundation of North America to provide public relations support for the Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

[31] Days after Grenell's appointment as DNI, CNN reported that his personal website had — until 2018 — touted consulting work he had done for clients in Iran, China, Kazakhstan, and other countries.

[39] The tweet was widely perceived as a threat, with the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, commenting that "This man was accredited as ambassador only yesterday.

[46][47] In December 2018, during the furor surrounding Der Spiegel writer Claas Relotius, who it turned out had been fabricating stories for years, Grenell wrote to the magazine, complained about an anti-American institutional bias, and asked for an independent investigation.

[48][49][50] In January 2019, Grenell told Handelsblatt that European companies participating in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline are "always in danger, because sanctions are always possible".

[52] Der Spiegel published a profile of Grenell on January 11, 2019, using interviews with 30 “American and German diplomats, cabinet members, lawmakers, high-ranking officials, lobbyists and think tank experts".

[5] The sources claimed that Grenell knew little "about Germany and Europe, that he ignores most of the dossiers his colleagues at the embassy write for him, and that his knowledge of the subject matter is superficial".

[69][70][71] After months of diplomatic talks, on January 20, 2020, Grenell facilitated negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo where the two nations agreed to restore flights between their capitals for the first time in more than two decades.

[72][73] A June 27, 2020 peace summit between the two sides was arranged to take place in Washington D.C., but was canceled due to the potential indictment of Hashim Thaçi on war crimes.

[74][75] According to a report by NPR, Grenell pressured Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti to accept a deal favorable to Serbia, including dropping tariffs and agreeing to land swaps, and publicly threatened to withdraw U.S. peacekeepers.

[83] Kash Patel — a National Security Council official and former aide to congressman Devin Nunes — was named the next day as a senior advisor to Grenell.

[109] In August 2020, the American Center for Law and Justice announced that Grenell had been named Special Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy[110] for the organization.

[115][116][117] Republican senator Susan Collins, one of four co-authors of the legislation creating the ODNI in 2004, said: "I care deeply about that position and believe the person needs experience in the intelligence community, which regrettably Ambassador Grenell does not have.

"[118] On the day his tenure began, it was reported that Grenell had not disclosed payments for advocacy work on behalf of Moldovan politician Vladimir Plahotniuc, who has been accused of stealing USD 1 billion from the Moldavan banking system between 2012 and 2014.

[119][120] On March 10, 2020, Grenell declined to attend a congressional hearing on election security, "citing apprehension about his preparedness to address sensitive subjects that tend to upset the president.

He made allegations of fraud, claiming that non-residents and people who were long dead had voted in Nevada and accusing the state of covering up these incidents.

When asked by journalists to identify himself and present evidence backing up any of his claims, Grenell refused to answer the questions and told reporters: "You're here to take in information".

[124] In June 2020, Richard Grenell was made a senior fellow at the Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Politics and Strategy in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

][128] Kiron Skinner, the founding director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy, defended the hiring decision on the basis of academic freedom and diversity of thought.

"[129] The report's conclusion also stated that "Prof. Skinner followed the small set of existing policies and procedures in place in the hiring of Richard Grenell, and he began his position on July 1.

[132] On January 31, 2025, Grenell travelled to Caracas, Venezuela to meet with Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro allegedly to discuss Trump's deportation strategy for accepting undocumented immigrants.

[133] Trump announced in an unverified post on Truth Social that this arrangement was in exchange for Venezuela accepting future Venezuelan deportees from the United States.