I rise today to pay tribute to Wendy Sherman, a fellow native Marylander and a distinguished daughter of Baltimore--and a true friend of mine--as she retires tomorrow from her position as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of State. As Deputy Secretary of State since the start of the Biden administration, Ms. Sherman has been entrusted with handling some of the most intractable diplomatic engagements our country has to manage. It is no wonder that one of her senior colleagues in the administration told the New York Times recently that she is the one most often deployed to have ``hard conversations in hard places.'' This included a vital meeting with her Russian counterpart in Geneva in January of 2022 where she delivered the U.S. Government's final warnings to the Kremlin about the high costs they would incur should they invade Ukraine. Wendy's early career was built around assisting women who had been abused and people in poverty, helping them to succeed despite underprivileged circumstances. The circle of people benefiting from her sharp intelligence and good heart widened quickly over the years. Advancing from her early career as a social worker, she became the executive director of EMILY's List, an important organization for the advancement of women in American politics, to the director of Maryland's office of child welfare, and later to become the founding president of the Fannie Mae Foundation. Along the way, Ms.…
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