Lisa Monaco, 57, has found herself at the center of a political firestorm after President Donald Trump demanded Microsoft fire her from her role as president of global affairs, calling her “a menace to U.S. national security” in a Truth Social post on Friday.
“Corrupt and Totally Trump Deranged Lisa Monaco (A purported pawn of Legal Lightweight Andrew Weissmann), was a senior National Security aide under Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump wrote. “Monaco has been shockingly hired as the President of Global Affairs for Microsoft, in a very senior role with access to Highly Sensitive Information. Monaco’s having that kind of access is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand.”
Microsoft has declined to comment on Trump’s demands.
The Harvard-educated former deputy attorney general now faces Trump’s public pressure campaign against former Biden administration officials who have moved into corporate leadership roles.
A career in government service
Monaco joined Microsoft in July as the company’s president of global affairs, leading Microsoft’s interactions with foreign governments, according to her LinkedIn profile. The appointment came after a distinguished career spanning more than two decades in government service, including senior roles in both the Obama and Biden administrations.
Born in Boston, on Feb. 25, 1968, Monaco graduated from Harvard University in 1990 with high honors in American history and literature. She earned her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997, where she served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable. Her early career included work as a researcher for The Wilson Quarterly and a role coordinating research for the Senate Judiciary Committee under then–chairman Joe Biden, contributing to the Violence Against Women Act.
Monaco’s government career began with a clerkship for Judge Jane Richards Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, followed by service as counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno from 1998 to 2001. She spent 15 years at the Department of Justice, serving as a federal prosecutor and in senior management positions, including chief of staff to FBI Director Robert Mueller after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Under President Obama, Monaco served as assistant attorney general for the national security division from 2011 to 2013, becoming the first woman to hold that position. She then moved to the White House as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism from 2013 to 2017, where she coordinated the federal government’s response to cybersecurity threats, terrorism, and other national security challenges.
Key role in Trump investigations
During the Biden administration, Monaco served as deputy attorney general, the second-highest position in the Justice Department, from 2021 to the beginning of 2025. In this role, she became a central figure in several high-profile investigations that directly involved Trump, making her a particular target of his ire.
Monaco helped coordinate the Justice Department’s response to the Jan. 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters in 2021. In January 2022, Monaco publicly announced that the Justice Department was investigating the Trump fake electors plot, saying in a CNN interview that the department would pursue the matter.
Her involvement extended to the Election Threats Task Force, which Attorney General Merrick Garland established to combat threats against election workers. Monaco regularly participated in task force meetings alongside FBI Director Christopher Wray and other senior officials, working to address what prosecutors described as an unprecedented rise in violent threats against election administrators.
Monaco also played a supervisory role during the special counsel investigations led by Jack Smith, who was appointed in November 2022 to investigate Trump’s handling of classified documents and his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. As deputy attorney general, Monaco would have been involved in overseeing these politically sensitive cases, though she maintained that all decisions were made independently of political influence.
Corporate transition and Trump’s response
Between her government stints, Monaco worked in the private sector as a CNN national security analyst and later as a partner at international law firm O’Melveny & Myers, where she cochaired the firm’s data security and privacy group. She advised high-profile clients including Exxon Mobil and Apple, while also teaching at NYU Law School.
Trump’s objections to Monaco’s Microsoft role center on her access to what he termed “Highly Sensitive Information” given the company’s extensive government contracts. Microsoft has significant relationships with the federal government, including a recent agreement with the General Services Administration that could provide $3.1 billion in savings on cloud services over one year.
The controversy emerged after Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo highlighted Monaco’s Microsoft appointment on X Friday morning, suggesting Trump may have only recently become aware of her corporate role.
In his Truth Social post, Trump wrote: “It is my opinion that Microsoft should immediately terminate the employment of Lisa Monaco.” He claimed the U.S. government had recently stripped Monaco of security clearances and banned her from federal properties, though these actions appear related to his broader revocation of clearances for former Biden administration officials. The controversy around Monaco came just one day after the Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
