Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State was twice concluded with a recommendation of no charges, a recommendation that was followed by the Justice Department, but according to Clinton herself, the emails matter and the way in which it would not go away contributed to her electoral defeat. 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
Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State She met or spoke with all of the living former secretaries, and especially relied upon her close friendship with Madeleine Albright. At the start of her tenure, Obama and Clinton announced several high-profile special envoys to trouble spots in the world, including former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell as Mideast envoy and Richard Holbrooke as envoy to South Asia and Afghanistan. On January 27, 2009, Secretary of State Clinton appointed Todd Stern as the department's Special Envoy for Climate Change. By May 2009, Clinton and the Obama administration intended to nominate Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, as Administrator