The Senate this week confirmed Jackie Wolcott as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency and as the U.S. representative to the Vienna, Austria, office of the United Nations.
Senators approved Wolcott’s nomination Monday by a vote of 75-19. Trump nominated Wolcott, a longtime Washington hand and a seasoned diplomat with previous nonproliferation experience, in January. Since 2016 she had been a commissioner for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she had previously served as executive director since 2010. Wolcott was the State Department’s special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation from 2008-2009.
Once sworn in, Wolcott will lead the State Department’s mission to the United Nations agency in charge of promoting peaceful use of nuclear technology while preventing the spread of atomic weapons. A spokesperson for the State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday.
Opposition to the nomination in Monday’s vote was limited to Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). However, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and a handful of other GOP senators did not vote.
Laura Holgate was the last person to hold the post Wolcott will slot into, according to the State Department’s Office of the Historian. Holgate is now vice president for materials risk management at the nongovernmental Nuclear Threat Initiative.
