Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served as the 67th United States Secretary of State, under President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2013, overseeing the department that conducted the Foreign policy of Barack Obama. She was preceded in office by Condoleezza Rice, and succeeded by John Kerry. She is also the only former First Lady of the United States to become a member of the United States Cabinet. Within a week after the November 4, 2008, presidential election, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed over telephone the possibility of her serving as U.S. Secretary of State in his
Clinton Foundation–State Department controversy a controversial story based on logs of meetings Clinton took as Secretary of State. In the story, the AP stated that at least 85 of 154 people from private interests that Clinton met or had phone conversations with while Secretary of State donated to the Clinton Foundation. In total, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million to the Foundation. The AP described the number as an "extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president". The AP promoted its story with a tweet claiming that "more than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money