RNC Chairman Michael Steele's Acceptance Speech VIDEO

A self-described Lincoln Republican. Michael S. Steele earned a place in history in 2003 when he became the first African-American elected to statewide office in Maryland. His experiences as a successful elected conservative African-American Republican and his engaging speaking style have launched Steele into national prominence. His first major exposure was during an appearance at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Since then President George W. Bush chose Steele to be part of the U.S. delegation to the investiture of Pope Benedict XVI, and as a member of the Presidential Delegation to the Leon H. Sullivan Summit VIII in Tanzania. Steele has been an entertaining and eloquent guest on cable political talk shows such as HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

An expert on political strategy, fund-raising, PACs, and election reform, he is the current Chairman of GOPAC. He has served on the National Federal Election Reform Commission and the NAACP Blue Ribbon Commission on Election Reform.

Born in 1958 at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Steele was raised in Washington, DC. He spent three years as a seminarian in the Order of St. Augustine in preparation for the priesthood, but, ultimately, chose a career in law instead. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1991.

He is currently a Partner in the international law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf in Washington, DC. From 1991–1997, Steele was a corporate securities attorney at the international law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in Washington, DC, specializing in sophisticated financial transactions on behalf of Wall Street underwriters. He also was a corporate finance counsel for the Mills Corporation and founded his own company, The Steele Group, a business and legal consulting firm. His writings on law, business and politics have appeared in The Washington Times, Politico.com, Townhall.com, and The Journal of International Security Affairs, among others.

Named a 2005 Aspen Institute–Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership and awarded the 2005 Bethune-DuBois Institute Award for his ongoing work in the development of quality education in Maryland, Steele also has served on a variety of boards and commissions including Export–Import Bank Advisory Board, the U.S. Naval Academy Board of Visitors, and the Republican National Committee.

Lt. Governor Steele serves on the Administrative Board of the Maryland Catholic Conference and is a member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Landover Hills, MD, where he attends mass regularly with his wife Andrea and their two sons Michael and Drew.

Robert Gibbs White House Press Briefing 1/28/09 PODCAST

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar MP3 52 mb James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 1:36 P.M. EST MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon, guys. Before we get started, I wanted to introduce Secretary Salazar, who is going to make his second trip as our Secretary of the Interior tomorrow -- he's going to go out West.

And I've invited him here to talk a little bit about the reform agenda that he's going to take with him on that trip, and answer a few questions. And then we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

So, Secretary.

SECRETARY SALAZAR: Thank you, Robert.

President Obama has immediately set high ethical standards for all of government as part of his reform agenda. As part of that commitment and implementing the reform agenda, I intend to do my part in the Department of Interior to make sure that scandals that have occurred in the past are properly dealt with, and that the problems that we uncover are fixed so that they don't occur again.

President Obama immediately made clear that the type of ethical transgressions, the blatant conflicts of interest, waste and abuses that we have seen over the last eight years will no longer be tolerated. Nowhere is President Obama's commitment to reform and to cleaning up the waste, fraud and abuse of the past more important than at the Department of Interior, which I now lead on his behalf.

Over the last eight years, the Department of Interior has been tarnished by ethical lapses, of criminal behavior that has extended to the very highest levels of government. The former deputy secretary of the department under the Bush administration, Steven Griles, was sent to prison. It is a department that the American people associate with Jack Abramoff. And it is a department that was tarnished by a scandal involving sex, drugs and inappropriate gifts from the oil and gas companies that the employees were in charge of overseeing.

The Lakewood, Colorado, office of the Minerals Management Service is taxed with making sure that taxpayers, the American taxpayers, collect their fair share from oil and gas development on their public lands. Last year that office collected $23 billion. That's $23 billion on behalf of the American people. Yet during the last administration, some of the employees of that office violated the public trust by accepting gifts and employment contracts from the very oil and gas companies that they were supposed to be holding accountable. FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT

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