Office of White House Counsel In January 2009, Hussain was named deputy associate counsel to President Barack Obama. Previously, he served as a
trial attorney at the
U.S. Department of Justice and as Associate Counsel to the Obama Presidential Transition Team.
The Washington Post reported that, "After the 2008 election, Hussain was recruited to the White House Counsel's office by
Greg Craig and
Cassandra Butts, a fellow Tar Heel and Obama's former Harvard Law classmate. He has worked there on national security and new media issues, and helped inform the administration's Muslim outreach efforts.
Ben Rhodes, Obama's chief foreign policy speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor, sought Hussain's counsel as he drafted the president's Cairo address and other speeches to Muslim audiences. Hussain also joined the President and the staff that traveled to Egypt for the
speech at Cairo University in 2009.
U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation On February 13, 2010, President Obama appointed the 31-year old Hussain as the United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Upon appointing the 31-year old White House attorney as one of the youngest posted American ambassadors and highest ranking Muslim American officials Obama stated: "as an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo, and as a
Hafiz of the
Quran, he is a respected member of the American Muslim community, and I thank him for carrying forward this important work." The Washington Post stated in addition to his personal background, "Muslims abroad are ... likely to take note of his White House credentials, and access to the Oval Office, as he seeks partnerships in education, health, science and technology." It also noted that Hussain "briefed Obama before his first interview as president--with
Al Arabiya, contributed to Obama's two major speeches to Muslims--in Ankara, Turkey and Cairo, traveled to the Middle East with Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton, and, closer to home, helped organize a
Ramadan dinner at the White House that replaced the usual crowd of ambassadors with young American Muslims." hosted by President Obama. In his role as Envoy to the OIC, the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN, Hussain traveled to numerous countries and international gatherings, served as a foreign policy advisor, and met with foreign leaders and the
Washington Post described Hussain as member of the President Obama's "spiritual cabinet." including President
Karzai of Afghanistan, President
Gul of Turkey,
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister
Najib of Malaysia, President
Zardari of Pakistan, Prime Minister Aziz of Mauritania, President
Sall of Senegal, President
Buhari of Nigeria, and OIC Secretary General
Ihsanoglu. Hussain also attended the OIC Heads of State Summit in Egypt and in Mecca, Saudi Arabia is 2012, where he met with a number of leaders, including a pre-dawn
Ramadan meal with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and held other meetings with President Gul of Turkey and President Karzai of Afghanistan. They discussed a number of issues, including Syria, the democratic transitions in the Middle East and North Africa, and U.S. engagement with Muslim communities around the world. Hussain also led an international peacemaking delegation to the
Central African Republic in 2014 to meet with President
Samba-Panza and civil society leaders. While Hussain served as Special Envoy, the U.S. and OIC increased cooperation in health and development, including OIC-
USAID cooperation on humanitarian aid, and have expanded partnerships in entrepreneurship, and science and technology. The OIC has been increasingly active in condemning
violent extremism, including attacks on religious minorities, and the kidnapping of school girls by
Boko Haram in Nigeria. The U.S. worked with the OIC to eliminate the OIC's previous heavily criticized "
defamation of religion" resolution at the UN and replace it with a resolution that removes the "defamation" concept and seeks to counter intolerance without restricting speech in a manner inconsistent with U.S. law. The OIC has also taken a larger role in international affairs - it was among the first to call for a no-fly zone in Libya and has been heavily critical of
Bashar al-Assad's regime, removing Syria from the OIC in 2012.
Work to Protect Human Rights and Religious Minorities Hussain has worked on efforts to improve the protection of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities living in Muslim-majority countries. He has also sought to combat anti-Semitism by denouncing
Holocaust denial and the publication of anti-Semitic materials in the Muslim world. In an op-ed on addressing
anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, he condemned the broadcast of an anti-Semitic film aired in some Muslim-majority countries, arguing that Jews and Christians face discrimination and violence in these countries and that "Efforts must be made to ensure that textbooks and television programming in the Muslim world are free from the types of dehumanizing ideas and images that breed intolerance and hate." Speaking to Foreign Ministers of Muslim countries at the OIC Ministerial in Guinea in 2013, he also criticized "restrictions on places of worship, including churches and synagogues" as "unacceptable." including
Coptic Christians in Egypt, where he visited with an American Coptic leader in 2012. Hussain has also traveled to a number of countries to address persecution of Muslim communities, including the Central African Republic, He also took a similar trip with American imams to Holocaust sites in 2010. Hussain has been outspoken against anti-Semitism during his other travels, including his rebuttal of anti-Semitic tirade during a trip to India in 2010.
ADL President
Abraham Foxman noted that Hussain's condemnation of "anti-Semitism in the Muslim and Arab world is significant" and that "influential figures, particularly political and religious leaders in the Muslim and Arab world, should emulate Ambassador Hussain's example." In January 2013, Mr. Hussain received the
Distinguished Honor Award from Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, which is given for "exceptionally outstanding service to the agencies of the U.S. Government resulting in achievements of marked national or international significance."
U.S. Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications Hussain has also been actively involved in international religious freedom and counterterrorism efforts, and his appointment as Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications Hussain, who has been named one of the world's 500 most influential Muslims, outlined a strategy for countering terrorist propaganda emphasizing a shift to non-governmental messaging, helped develop messaging centers in the UAE, Nigeria, Malaysia, and in Saudi Arabia. In 2015,
The Washington Post reported that Hussain was appointed to shift US messaging efforts by building partnerships with international NGOs and other governments to counter terrorist propaganda. Hussain outlined an approach He also called for "Muslim-hosted and run messaging initiatives to take a leading role" in expanding "counter-messaging and positive narratives." Hussain co-authored a paper, "Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy" for the
Brookings Institution. It sharply rejects those who commit terrorist acts in the name of religion, including those who seek to use Islamic justifications for such actions. In a speech to a meeting of Foreign Ministers from 56 Muslim-majority countries, Hussain stated, "It is our duty to eradicate this ideology completely and blaming the foreign policy of any country is not the answer. No policy grievance justifies the slaughter of innocent people." He has also held discussions on the topic of violent extremism with government and civil society in trips to countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addressing extremism, Hussain has also argued that Muslim communities must improve secular and religious education for boys and girls, increase access to opportunity through job creation, address the sense of political disenfranchisement in Muslim communities, and improve
deradicalization programming. In a panel hosted by Peter Bergen on online radicalization in 2013, Hussain described the extremists' online approach as combining a message of religious obligation to defend Muslim causes with emotional international images in a way that attempts to provide a sense of purpose to disaffected youth. He encouraged Muslim communities to create online media content that acknowledges perceived grievances, but uses imagery and religious content to make clear that terrorists are actually killing Muslims, damaging Muslim causes, and violating Islam, not defending it. Hearings on his nomination were held before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 26, 2021. The committee favorably reported his nomination on December 15, 2021. On December 16, 2021, the Senate voted 85–5 to confirm Hussain's nomination as
United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. ==Personal life==