Maurice Sonnenberg has served as an outside advisor to five Presidential Administrations in the areas of international trade, finance, international relations, intelligence, and foreign election monitoring.
Biography
Education
Sonnenberg is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (B.S.), Georgetown Law Center, and New York University International Law (M.S.). He served in the D.C. Air National Guard from 1959 to 1962 and the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
Politics
Sonnenberg began his career, while at Georgetown University, as an aide to Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, who later headed the Senate Banking Committee, having previously worked for the Lyndon B. Johnson-Hubert Humphrey Presidential campaign as director of special projects. From 1983-93 he was Chairman of the Democratic House & Senate Council. Among his Senate co-chairs at the time were Sen. George Mitchel, Sen. Joseph Biden, Sen. Bob Graham, Sen. John Kerry, and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV. Among the House co-chairs were current Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and former Congressman Robert G. Torricelli.
Intelligence and Foreign Policy
In 1994 and 1995, he served as a member of the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, and in 1996 as the Senior Advisor to the U.S. Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community. [Aspin–Brown Commission] He was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President Bill Clinton for 8 years.
In 2000, he served as Vice-Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism]]. According to Sonnenberg, 28 of the 33 recommendations from the report made it to the USA Patriot Act. He has claimed the September 11 attacks could have been prevented if all the recommendations had been implemented.
In 2002, he was a member of the Task Force Report No. 40 of the Council on Foreign Relations called Terrorist Financing. In 2012-14, he served as co-Chairman of the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs for the Intelligence Community. He has also served as an Official U.S. Observer at elections in Latin America. This includes multiple elections in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico. He was appointed by the Congress and Administration for these tasks. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Chertoff Group, headed by Michael Chertoff.(Former Secretary of Homeland Security)
Sonnenberg has served as a foreign policy adviser to various presidential administrations, including: