Cheryl Mills

Counselor and Chief of Staff to Hillary Rodham Clinton (since January 2009)

(Ray Lustig/TWP)

Why She Matters

As deputy counsel, Mills sat at the epicenter of the scandals in the Clinton White House for seven years, eventually delivering an impassioned defense of the president during his 1999 impeachment trial.

Mills left the White House soon after, but her performance earned her a place in the hearts of the former president and his wife. When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pursued the presidency almost a decade later, she tapped Mills to be her senior adviser and counsel on the campaign. As her campaign imploded, Mills acted as a de-facto manager.

Read more

Corrections?

Background

At a Glance

Career History: Chief Counsel, Hillary Rodham Clinton 's 2008 Presidential Campaign (2006 to 2008); Executive Vice President, New York University (2001 to 2008); Senior Vice President for Corporate Policy and Public Programming, Oxygen Media (1999 to 2001)
Hometown: Germany and Belgium

Alma Mater: University of Virginia, B.A., 1987; Stanford Law School, J.D., 1990
Web site

Path to Power

Mills was born into an Army family, and spent her childhood living on U.S. bases in Germany, Belgium and the U.S. She decided that she would become a lawyer in 5th grade ("I know, very bizarre" she told the New York Times).

Mills moved back to the U.S. for high school, earning her B.A. at the University of Virginia. She graduated from Stanford Law School (where she was elected to the law review) in 1990, and then moved to Washington to work for Hogan and Hartson, a prominent D.C. law firm.

Read more

The Clinton Years

In 1992, Mills moved to Little Rock, Ark., to work for President Bill Clinton's transition team. She quickly endeared herself to the Clintons, who admired her dedication. "She is incredibly loyal to the president," a White House colleague told The Washington Post. "If something's on the other side of a brick wall and the Clintons need it, she'll find a way to get to it: over, around or through."

Mills joined the White House counsel's office as a lawyer. She quickly moved up the ranks and in 1997, was named deputy White House counsel. In that position, she was chosen to defend Clinton during his impeachment hearings in the House over his inappropriate relationship with a White House intern. In a slow, emphatic voice (unusual for the fast-talker), Mills argued in front of Congress and the chief justice of the Supreme Court that the president did not deserve to be impeached. "We cannot uphold the rule of law only when it is consistent with our beliefs," Mills said during the trial. "We must uphold it even when it protects behavior that we don't like or is unattractive or is not admirable or that might even be hurtful."

She also defended the president's record on civil rights and women's rights, drawing attention to her own race and sex. "I stand here before you today because President Bill Clinton believed I could stand here for him."

In 1999, Bill Clinton offered Mills the position of White House counsel, but Mills turned it down. She would have become the first African American and the first woman to hold the post. "It is very hard" to leave the White House, she told the New York Times. But Mills said she needed to refocus her life.

Oxygen Media

In 1999, Mills was named senior vice president for corporate policy and public programming at Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen Media. She moved in 2001 to New York University, where she was appointed senior vice president and general counsel.

Mills work with the Clintons earned her the enduring trust of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. When Hillary decided in 2007 to run for president, she tapped Mills as her campaign's general counsel.

Hillary Clinton's Team

From the early days of Clinton's presidential campaign, Mills was one of the candidate's closest confidantes. As Clinton suffered a string of primary losses and a revolving door of strategists and advisers, Mill also became a de-facto campaign manager.

Mills was the "voice of reason," providing a steadying hand for the tumultuous campaign. Howard Wolfson, the campaign's communications director, called Mills "a person of incredible strength and fortitude" and said she assumed "a very significant role under very difficult circumstances and did a remarkable job of keeping the ship afloat."

After Clinton lost the 2008 Democratic primary, Mills remained an ally. When Clinton was nominated as secretary of State, Mills helped President Barack Obama's team lead the vetting the complex process, including vetting Bill Clinton's foundation work and conflict-of-interest issues. After she was officially appointed, Mills became Clinton's chief of staff at State. "I think Secretary Clinton wants to know you're a team player, but she wants to hear it straight," Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, told Politico. "And she gets exactly that from Cheryl."

The Issues

In the Clinton White House, Mills had a reputation for being tough and exacting. Lanny Davis, a Clinton press office official, said there were often tensions between the counsel's office and the Clintons' press aides. Mills did not believe that the administration should release any more information than absolutely necessary. "In the early days she and I often clashed, sometimes strenuously, usually over the same issue," he wrote in his memoir Truth to Tell. "I would want to push out information when the press wanted it and she would insist on accuracy and completeness, with what I sometimes felt was an excessive concern for legal risks."

Work- Life Balance

Mills has spoken about the importance of finding a balance between work and family life. "There weren't often a lot of models where you could see women at the height of what they were doing and balancing their family," she told ABC News. "And being able to see her [Clinton] with Chelsea, see what their relationship was like, see when she took the time, all those things helped you to be thoughtful about how to be an effective parent yourself."

The Network

Mills' ties to Clinton administration officials go way back. In 1992, she lived in the same apartment complex as Carol M. Browner before she was head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

She is also close with many of the women in "Hillaryland," including Ambassador-at-Large for Women's Issues Melanne Verveer; senior adviser to Health and Human Services Department's Office of Health Reform Neera Tanden and Judith McHale, undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.

Read more

Additional Resources