This profile contains Biden Administration nominations and appointments made at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Nominations and Appointments

Denis McDonough is Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He was formerly a Senior Advisor and Senior Principal at the Markle Foundation,¹ a Partner at Macro Advisory Partners,² and a Professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs.³ He was Senior Foreign Policy Advisor for President Obama’s 2008 campaign, and served in the Obama Administration as Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor from 2010-2013 and as White House Chief of Staff from 2013-2017. Prior to that, he worked in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. He has served on the Board of Directors of Catalyte, the National Democratic Institute, and the SAFE Project, and as a member of the Advisory Council of the Tent Partnership for Refugees.⁴ McDonough was formerly a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress,⁵ and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.⁶

Richard A. Sauber is General Counsel for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was formerly a Partner at the law firm of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber LLP, and was also a Partner for 23 years at the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Before entering private practice he was a federal prosecutor, and was appointed by President Reagan to lead a task force on government contracts fraud. He has served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School, as General Counsel at Freedom House, and on the board of directors of the Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.⁷

1. “Denis McDonough.” Markle Foundation. Accessed December 11, 2020. Available at: https://www.markle.org/about-markle/staff/denis-mcdonough
2. “The Firm.” Macro Advisory Partners. Accessed December 11, 2020. Available at: https://www.macroadvisorypartners.com/the-firm
3. “Denis McDonough.” Keough School of Global Affairs. Accessed December 11, 2020. Available at: https://keough.nd.edu/profile/denis-mcdonough/
4. “Denis McDonough.” Markle Foundation. Accessed December 11, 2020. Available at: https://www.markle.org/about-markle/staff/denis-mcdonough
5. “STATEMENT: Neera Tanden on President Obama’s Naming Denis McDonough as Chief of Staff.” Center for American Progress. January 25, 2013. Available at: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement/2013/01/25/49815/statement-neera-tanden-on-president-obamas-naming-denis-mcdonough-as-chief-of-staff/
6. “Denis McDonough.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Accessed June 14, 2021. Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/1329
7. “Richard A. Sauber.” Robbins Russell. December 3, 2020 (accessed via WayBack Machine). Available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20201203033757/https://www.robbinsrussell.com/attorneys/richard-a-sauber/