Cliff Sloan

Clifford Sloan is an American diplomat who served as Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the United States Department of State. Sloan is currently a Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center and retired partner for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates. Previously, Sloan was the publisher of Slate magazine.[1]

Cliff Sloan
United States Special Envoy for the Closure of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility
In office
June 2013 – December 22, 2014
PresidentBarack Obama
Preceded byDaniel Fried
Succeeded byLee S. Wolosky
Personal details
Born
Clifford Sloan
Alma materHarvard College (B.A.)
Harvard Law School (JD)

Education

Sloan graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois in 1975.[2] He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1979 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1984.[1]

Career

During his time at Harvard Law, Sloan and classmate Eliot Spitzer assisted Alan Dershowitz with the Claus von Bülow murder case. In the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune, about the case, Sloan and Spitzer are portrayed by Felicity Huffman and Annabella Sciorra.[3] After his time at Harvard Law, he served as a Supreme Court clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens.[4] He also was Vice President of Business Affairs and general counsel at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, where he was responsible for developing strategic partnerships and managing WPNI's legal affairs.[5] Previously, Sloan served as Associate White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton.

In March 2008, Sloan stepped down as publisher of Slate magazine to become a partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom LLP.[6] After stepping down at Slate and before he began work at Skadden, Mr. Sloan co-authored the book The Great Decision with David McKean. The book is about the case Marbury v. Madison.

Special Envoy

On June 16, 2013, The New York Times, Fox News, National Public Radio, Reuters, and several other press sources reported that President Barack Obama would appoint Sloan as the new State Department envoy tasked to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp by negotiating with countries which might accept the transfer of captives.[7][8][9]

The previous Special Envoy, Daniel Fried, was granted seniority high enough he was addressed as Ambassador.[10][11] When Fried was reassigned on January 28, 2013, no replacement was announced, and it was reported that the office was being shut down.[12][13] Fried had not been able to initiate a new transfer for more than a year prior to his reassignment. However, in May 2013, Obama had re-iterated his commitment to closing the Guantanamo camps during a speech at the National Defense University.[14][15][16] During his speech Obama had announced he would appoint a new senior official at the State Department, and another at the United States Department of Defense, tasked to expedite the transfer of the remaining Guantanamo captives.

On December 14, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Sloan's resignation. His resignation took observers by surprise as close to two dozen individuals had been released or repatriated shortly before his resignation.[17]

Controversy

On February 5, 2019, The New York Times reported that Sloan, again serving as partner at the Skadden law firm, worked on the Paul Manafort-linked lobbying project for the Russia-aligned former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.[18] According to government filings, Paul Manafort arranged for Skadden to receive $4 million from a Cypriot account that Manafort controlled, funneled through an oligarch.[18] That oligarch was "understood" by the Skadden firm to be Victor Pinchuk. In an email cited in the law firm's $4.6 million settlement with the Justice Department over the issue, Sloan had written to another Skadden partner, Gregory Craig, that "the Ukraine payment situation" could "put us in a very deep hole in the western press…" and recommended that "we need to get it out there as soon as we can."[18]

Later career

In 2019, Sloan retired from Skadden and is now a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.[19]

Personal life

Sloan is married to Mary Lou Hartman, the former Director of the Mitchell Scholarship program. They live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.[20]

References
  1. "Cliff Sloan | Professionals | Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP". www.skadden.com. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
  2. "Cliff Sloan (1975) Written remarks". New Trier High School. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
  3. "Gilded Path to Political Stardom, With Detours", NYTimes.com, accessed October 11, 2014
  4. "Cliff Sloan", Newsweek on MSNBC.com, accessed November 22, 2006
  5. "Who We Are" Archived 2006-11-13 at the Wayback Machine, Slate, accessed November 22, 2006
  6. "Slate Announces New Publisher". Business Wire. March 19, 2008. Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved March 19, 2008 – via PR-Inside.com.
  7. "Obama picks lawyer as Guantanamo closure envoy, sources tell AP". Washington DC: Fox News. 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2013-06-16. President Barack Obama has chosen a high-powered Washington lawyer with extensive experience in all three branches of the government to be the State Department's special envoy for closing down the military-run prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.'
  8. "Obama To Name Top Lawyer As Guantanamo Closure Envoy". Washington DC: National Public Radio. 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2013-06-16. The Associated Press, which first reported the news, said Sloan will reopen the Office of Guantanamo Closure, which was shut in January. A formal announcement is expected Monday.
  9. "State Department to name lawyer Cliff Sloan to close Guantanamo". Washington DC: Reuters. 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2013-06-16. The State Department on Monday is expected to announce the appointment of Washington lawyer Cliff Sloan to oversee the closure of the controversial Guantanamo detention camp, sources familiar with the decision said on Sunday.
  10. Appointment of Ambassador Daniel Fried, state.gov, 2009-03-12
  11. "Daniel Fried to lead dedicated term in Guantanamo closing" Archived 2009-09-05 at the Wayback Machine, 2009-03-13
  12. Charlie Savage (2013-01-28). "State Dept. Closes Office Working on Shutting Guantánamo Prison". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. The State Department on Monday reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and will not replace him, according to an internal personnel announcement. Mr. Fried’s office is being closed, and his former responsibilities will be “assumed” by the office of the department’s legal adviser, the notice said.
  13. Kristin Deasy (2013-01-28). "US State Department shuts down office tasked with closing Guantanamo: Move suggests priority shift on the part of the administration". Global Post. Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. As of today, there is no longer a State Department office overseeing efforts to close the US prison at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, and the person assigned to the task, Daniel Fried, has been given something else to do, reported The New York Times, citing an official statement.
  14. Carol Rosenberg (2014-10-07). "Capitol Hill lawyer chosen as Pentagon's 'Guantánamo closer'". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2014-11-25. Paul Lewis will fill the job that has been vacant since President Barack Obama created it in May, the Pentagon said Tuesday — a day after the Miami Herald reported on the appointment. Lewis, the minority counsel for the House Armed Services Committee, will work for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel exclusively on closing Guantánamo and transferring foreign prisoners from Afghanistan as a counterpart to State Department envoy Clifford Sloan’s work for Secretary of State John Kerry.
  15. Charlie Savage (2013-10-08). "Pentagon Names Envoy for Guantánamo's Closing". The New York Times. Washington DC. p. A16. Archived from the original on 2013-12-08. Retrieved 2014-11-25. Mr. Lewis joins Cliff Sloan, who was appointed in June to be the State Department’s envoy. The appointment of Mr. Lewis, who had worked in the office of the Pentagon general counsel earlier in the Obama administration, is part of a larger turnover of staff on detention issues. In July, William Lietzau, who had been the Pentagon’s top policy official on detainee matters, announced that he was stepping down to take a private sector job.
  16. Jeremy Herb (2013-10-08). "Hagel appoints Guantánamo Bay envoy". The Hill. Archived from the original on 2014-11-25. The president has renewed his efforts this year, and Lewis will be filling a vacant position created by Obama four months ago. Lewis will be tasked with facilitating transfers out of Guantánamo, as well as overseeing the transfer of detainees held by the United States in Afghanistan.
  17. Matt Spetalnick (2014-12-23). "The State Department's Guantanamo Chief Has Resigned". Business Insider. Retrieved 2014-12-23. The surprise announcement of Clifford Sloan’s departure followed a flurry of detainee repatriations and resettlements, though officials at the State Department and White House had made clear their frustration with the slow handling of such moves by outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
  18. Vogel, Kenneth P. (2019-02-05). "Firms Recruited by Paul Manafort Are Investigated Over Foreign Payments". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-02-06.
  19. "Greg Craig Trial Poses Public Relations Test for Skadden". news.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
  20. "Honoree Cliff Sloan" (PDF).
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