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Alyssa Farah Griffin
Official portrait, 2019
3rd White House Director of Strategic Communications
In office
April 7, 2020 – December 4, 2020
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byMercedes Schlapp
Succeeded byPosition eliminated (2021)
Press Secretary of the Department of Defense
In office
September 2019 – April 7, 2020
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byDana White
Succeeded byJohn Kirby
Press Secretary to the Vice President
In office
October 2017 – September 2019
Vice PresidentMike Pence
Preceded byMarc Lotter
Succeeded byKatie Waldman
Personal details
Born
Alyssa Farah

(1989-06-15) June 15, 1989 (age 35)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
Justin Griffin
​
(m. 2021)​
Parent
EducationPatrick Henry College (BA)

Alyssa Farah Griffin (/ˈfɛrə/;[1] born June 15, 1989) is an American political strategist and television personality. She was the White House director of strategic communications and Assistant to the President in 2020 during the presidency of Donald Trump. In addition to appearing on CNN as a commentator, she is a co-host of the talk show The View, for which she received a nomination for a Daytime Emmy Award.

Griffin was press secretary for U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and special assistant to President Donald Trump from October 2017 to September 2019. In 2019, she was appointed the youngest press secretary of The Pentagon in history.[2] She served as deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs and the press secretary for the United States Department of Defense from 2019 to 2020.[3][4][5]

Early life

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Griffin was born on June 15, 1989, in Los Angeles.[6] Her father, Joseph Farah, is a journalist of Syrian and Lebanese descent who was executive news editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner before moving to Northern California to become editor of The Sacramento Union in 1990. He later founded the far-right website WorldNetDaily. Her mother Judy (née Smagula) is a Sacramento-based journalist who has written for HuffPost, the Associated Press, and Comstock's.[7][8][9] Griffin describes herself as having been "raised in the right-wing media".[10]

After graduating from Bella Vista High School in 2007, Griffin earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism and Public Policy from Patrick Henry College.[11]

Career

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Before 2014, Griffin had written articles for her father's far-right website WorldNetDaily, where she served as a "special Washington correspondent for WND."[8][7] In 2010, Griffin was a media intern for Congressman Tom McClintock and began a one-year position as an associate producer on The Laura Ingraham Show.[12] In the 2012 presidential election cycle, Griffin was the spokesperson for the College Republican National Committee, traveling the country discussing the youth vote. In 2014, she was named press secretary for Congressman Mark Meadows; she was later named as his communications director. She went on to work as the communications director for the Freedom Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving under Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows.[13]

In September 2017, she was appointed special assistant to the president and press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence. As press secretary to the vice president, she traveled with Pence on numerous trips, domestic and foreign, and was part of the official U.S. delegations to the Munich Security Conference and ASEAN Summit.[14]

In September 2019, Griffin became press secretary for the United States Department of Defense, after the role had been vacant for nearly a year. She was also appointed director of media affairs.[15] In this role, Griffin was the chief spokesperson for the department.

In April 2020, it was reported that Meadows, by then Trump's chief of staff, had considered bringing Griffin on as a White House press secretary.[16] She joined the White House Office as the White House director of strategic communications on April 7, 2020.[17] In August 2020, The Washington Post reported that Griffin played an important role in shaping the Trump administration's coronavirus response.[18]

Griffin resigned as White House communications director on December 3, 2020, effective the next day. At the time it was reported she planned to start a consulting firm "focusing on the corporate, political and defense realms" and that she had initially planned to leave before the election according to one person speaking anonymously.[19]

The day before January 6, 2021, United States Capitol attack, Griffin publicly condemned Trump supporters for harassing Senator Mitt Romney.[20] She denounced the attack,[21] and days later, on January 8, blamed Trump for inciting the attack and suggested that he should resign.[22][23]

In a February 7, 2021, interview on CNN, Griffin questioned the constitutionality of the second impeachment of Donald Trump and stated she believed censuring would be more appropriate. When asked if she would support censure after the impeachment if it fails, she said it was "an open question" before recommending the country should "move on" from the Capitol raid.[24]

In February 2021, Griffin became a visiting fellow with the Independent Women's Forum.[25] In June 2021, Griffin co-authored an editorial with Johanna Maska, who served as President Obama's director of press advance. In the editorial, which was published by USA Today, the two discuss the need to overcome the political divide in the U.S.[26]

Griffin voluntarily spoke to the January 6 House select committee several times in 2021.[27] In December 2021, CNN revealed that Griffin was the author of a text to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows calling for Donald Trump to condemn the attack saying “people will die.”[28] In June 2022, Griffin revealed that Trump stated privately several times in November 2020 that he had lost the 2020 election and she related that once while watching Biden on television, Trump said "Can you believe I lost to this guy?"[29]

On July 27, 2022, she said the Justice Department had not contacted her regarding its investigation into January 6.[30] During her testimony to the January 6 select committee in September 2022, Cassidy Hutchinson claimed that Griffin agreed to act as her backchannel so she could avoid letting her attorney Stefan Passantino, a Trump loyalist, know that she was giving additional testimony.[31][32]

In 2021, Griffin joined CNN as a political contributor.[33] Griffin was appointed a fellow of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service for Spring 2022.[34] In 2022, Griffin became a permanent co-host of the talk show The View for the series's 26th season after making several guest appearances throughout 2021 and 2022;[35][36] In 2024, she received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Talk Series Host nomination for her work.[37]

Personal life

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In 2019, Griffin was a victim of an impersonation scam using her name to target members of Congress, and that the matter was under investigation by the FBI.[38]

In 2020, Griffin became engaged to Justin Griffin, a graduate of the New York University Stern School of Business and a grandson of Republican Party activist Samuel A. Tamposi.[39] They were married in November 2021.[40] In 2022, Griffin revealed on The View that members of her family, including her father and step-mother, boycotted her wedding because of her differences with Trump.[41]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Griffin says her own name while posing a question to Adam Schiff on the July 24, 2024 episode of The View.
  2. ^ Parker, Ashley (December 3, 2020). "Farah resigns as White House communications director in tacit nod to Trump's loss". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on December 6, 2020. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  3. ^ Collins, Kaitlan (August 14, 2019). "Alyssa Farah, Pence press secretary, expected to move to Pentagon". cnn.com. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
  4. ^ "Alyssa Farah > U.S. Department of Defense > Biography". defense.gov.
  5. ^ "Top Pence aide to become Pentagon press secretary". msn.com. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  6. ^ Lippman, Daniel (June 15, 2019). "Birthday of the Day: Alyssa Farah, press secretary for Vice President Pence". Politico. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  7. ^ a b Krepel, Terry (December 20, 2017). "Pence's Press Secretary Is Daughter Of Right-Wing Conspiracy Site's Founder". HuffPost.
  8. ^ a b Roig-Franzia, Manuel (April 2, 2019). "Inside the spectacular fall of the granddaddy of right-wing conspiracy sites". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  9. ^ Nussbaum, Matthew; Sherman, Jake (September 18, 2017). "Pence taps top Freedom Caucus aide as press secretary". Politico. Archived from the original on September 20, 2017.
  10. ^ Klein, Charlotte (May 16, 2022). "Alyssa Farah Griffin, the Ex-Trump Aide, Wants to Be America's Household Conservative". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on June 12, 2022. Retrieved August 5, 2022.
  11. ^ "Alyssa Farah > U.S. Department of Defense > Biography". defense.gov. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  12. ^ Santiago, Ellyn (January 6, 2019). "Alyssa Farah: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  13. ^ Nussbaum, Matthew; Sherman, Jake (September 18, 2017). "Pence taps top Freedom Caucus aide as press secretary". Politico.
  14. ^ Parker, Ashley (April 2, 2019). "Top Pence aide will move to Pentagon as new press secretary". Washington Post.
  15. ^ "Top Pence Aide Heading to the Pentagon to be Chief Spokeswoman". The Washington Post.
  16. ^ Treene, Jonathan Swan,Alayna (April 3, 2020). "Mark Meadows considers new White House press secretary". Axios. Retrieved April 3, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ McGraw, Meredith; Cook, Nancy (April 7, 2020). "Kayleigh McEnany replaces Grisham as White House press secretary". Politico. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
  18. ^ Rucker, Philip; Yasmeen Abutaleb; Josh Dawsey; Robert Costa (August 8, 2020). "The lost days of summer: How Trump struggled to contain the virus". The Washington Post.
  19. ^ Parker, Ashley (December 3, 2020). "Farah resigns as White House communications director in tacit nod to Trump's loss". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 4, 2022.
  20. ^ Castronuovo, Celine (January 6, 2021). "Former White House official says Trump supporters harassing Romney 'beneath us as a country'". The Hill. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  21. ^ "'For our country!': Trump world pleads with the president to condemn storming of the Capitol". Politico. January 6, 2021. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  22. ^ "Former Trump communications director says President lied about 2020 election and should consider resigning". CNN. January 8, 2020.
  23. ^ Fossett, Katelyn, 'I Stepped Down Because I Saw Where This Was Heading' (interview), Politico, January 7, 2021.
  24. ^ Pamela Brown and Alyssa Farah (February 7, 2021). Trump's ex-communications director has advice ahead of trial (Television broadcast). CNN.
  25. ^ "IWF Welcomes Alyssa Farah To The Team". Independent Women's Forum. February 26, 2021. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
  26. ^ Farah, Alyssa; Maska, Johanna (June 11, 2021). "One worked for Trump. The other for Obama. This is their advice on unifying the country". USA Today. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  27. ^ Polantz, Katelyn; Nobles, Ryan; Reid, Paula; Cohen, Zachary (October 23, 2021). "Former DOJ official who pushed baseless election fraud claims expected to testify before January 6 committee". CNN. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  28. ^ "Former White House official reveals she sent 'people are going to die' Jan. 6 text to Meadows". Washington Examiner. December 14, 2021. Retrieved December 21, 2021.
  29. ^ Staff (June 19, 2022). "Ex-Trump aide says Trump admitted privately that he lost the election – CNN Video (00:50)". CNN News. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
  30. ^ Duster, Chandelis (July 27, 2022). "DOJ has reached out to more former White House officials, ex-Trump official says". CNN. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  31. ^ "Transcripts of Cassidy Hutchinson's depositions with the House January 6 committee". CNN. December 22, 2022. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
  32. ^ Jansen, Bart; Lee, Ella; Slack, Donovan; Ramaswamy, Swapna Venugopal; Meyer, Josh; Tran, Ken (December 22, 2022). "Cassidy Hutchinson: 'Trump world' lawyer told her to skirt Jan. 6 questions – live updates". USA Today. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
  33. ^ Walsh, Savannah (July 27, 2022). "'The View' Will Reportedly Name Ex-Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin as New Cohost". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on July 27, 2022. Retrieved August 5, 2022.
  34. ^ "Current Fellows". Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service.
  35. ^ Wagmeister, Elizabeth (August 4, 2022). "'The View' Names Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin as Co-Hosts for Season 26". Variety. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved August 4, 2022.
  36. ^ Nolfi, Joey (September 6, 2022). "'The View' returns with new chairs for season 26 after Joy Behar fall". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  37. ^ Robinson, KiMi (April 18, 2024). "2024 Daytime Emmys: List of nominees, including Dick Van Dyck, more". USA Today. Archived from the original on April 30, 2024. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
  38. ^ Bender, Michael C. (January 5, 2019). "FBI Investigating Fake Texts Sent to GOP House Members". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  39. ^ "Engagement: Farah-Griffin". Union Leader. August 2, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  40. ^ "'The View' co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin biography". ABC News. August 4, 2022. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved August 5, 2022.
  41. ^ Moran, Lee (February 12, 2022). "Ex-Trump Aide: Dad Boycotted My Wedding After I Spoke Out Against Former President".


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