Countable Explains: Who's Who in the Russia Investigation

Sam H. Clovis Jr.

Role:

White House Adviser to the United States Department of Agriculture

Former role:

Trump campaign policy advisor. In that capacity, helped assemble then-candidate Trump's National Security Advisory Committee, on which George Papadopoulos sat.

Former nominee for Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics, the USDA's top science post.

Previously active in Iowa GOP politics, running for Republican nomineed to the U.S. Senate in 2013 and Iowa State Treasurer in 2014. He lost both races.

Quote:

"I have looked at the science and I have enough of a science background to know when I’m being boofed. And a lot of the science is junk science. It’s not proven; I don’t think there’s any substantive information available to me that doesn’t raise as many questions as it does answers. So I’m a skeptic. "

— Sam Clovis in an interview with Iowa Public Radio during his 2013 primary race for to represent Iowa in the United States Senate

Key dates:

• August 2015: joined the Trump campaign as a policy adviser and national campaign co-chairman.

• January 25, 2017: Des Moines Register reports that Clovis has joined the White House Adviser to the USDA. Clovis runs the USDA on an interim basis until Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is confirmed as Secretary of Agriculture.

• September 4, 2017: Clovis is nominated to the post of Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics, the USDA's top science post, despite not being a scientist and being a well documented skeptic on climate change, reports NPR.

• November 2, 2017: The Washington Post reports that Clovis withdraws his nomination for the USDA Under Secretary post once it is revealed that he is the senior campaign official that was described in the plea deal of George Papadopoulos to have encouraged Papadopoulos to pursue furthering ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. In a letter which is tweeted in its entirety by NBC News Clovis withdraws his nomination for the Under Secretary post but maintains his desire to continue to serve as a White House adviser to the USDA, "at the pleasure of [the president] and the Secretary of Agriculture."

Current mood:

Exposed, but defiant.