Trump nominates Pennsylvania RNC member Christine Toretti as ambassador to Sweden

Julia Terruso, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jan 10, 2025

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A longtime Republican National Committee member from Pennsylvania who was twice unsuccessfully nominated for an ambassadorship during the first Trump administration will get a third go for the job.

President-elect Donald Trump is nominating Christine Toretti, a RNC member from Indiana County, to be the next ambassador to Sweden.

Trump nominated Toretti to be ambassador to Malta in both 2019 and 2020, but in both years her nomination was returned to the president without the narrowly GOP-controlled Senate acting on it.

Toretti is the first Pennsylvanian to be nominated for an ambassadorship in Trump’s new administration. Trump spent tens of millions of dollars on campaigning in the state in the run-up to the election, and won it by a larger margin than he did in 2016.

“Christine is an incredible businesswoman, philanthropist, public servant and RNC Committeewoman for the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Trump said in his announcement of her nomination.

Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) also lauded Toretti, calling her a “friend of 40 years,” who was once his dad’s boss when the two worked at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

“But I am mostly so proud for our country because no one could represent the United States of America as well as Christine!” McCormick wrote.

Her nomination to represent the U.S. in Sweden comes at a potentially fractious time for the region as Trump has made waves saying he wants to make Greenland part of the United States. Greenland is controlled by Denmark, one of Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbors.

Toretti has been one of two national committee people representing Pennsylvania on the RNC since 1997 and is one of the most prominent GOP fund-raisers in the state. She chairs S&T Bancorp, an Indiana County-based financial holding company, and is the former director of the Pittsburgh Federal Reserve Bank, and a former CEO of a now-shuttered gas and oil drilling company based in Indiana County.

She did not respond to a request for comment.

Her previous nominations were scuttled partly due to a 2008 incident. Toretti is the ex-wife of the late Hall of Fame NCAA basketball coach Lute Olson, who coached Arizona University and Iowa University men’s basketball teams.

The couple went through publicly contentious divorce proceedings beginning in 2007 shortly after Olson suffered a stroke, according to news reports from the Associated Press and the Arizona Daily Star. In 2008, on the same day Olson announced his retirement from coaching, Toretti was accused of threatening the coach’s doctor at his medical practice office.

According to the restraining order from 16 years ago, Toretti called the office several times asking for Dr. Steven Knope and then put a bullet-riddled target sheet on a chair in his office.

The 16-year-old incident may not carry the weight it did four years ago as Trump begins his second presidency with an even firmer hold on his party.

Rob Gleason, the former GOP party chair in Pennsylvania, lauded her fundraising efforts and said Toretti has been beloved by the state party — running every four years since 1997 usually without an opponent. She’s one of just 165 people on the party’s national committee.

“This is probably a great reward for her for all the years she has labored as a member of the Republican Party,” Gleason said. “But when you become an ambassador you’re out of politics so this will be different for her.”

Her confirmation would open up a seat for the state committee to fill at the RNC.

Toretti’s career began in energy. She was one of the lone female CEOs of a drilling company in the United States while at the helm of S.W. Jack Drilling Co. The now shuttered company, founded in 1918 by Toretti’s grandfather, was once among the 20 largest drilling companies in the country. A political action committee associated with the company supported Gov. Tom Corbett’s gubernatorial campaign.

Toretti was among the first Pennsylvania Republicans to endorse George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election and she went on to serve on Bush’s Energy Advisory Committee. She’s a past director of the National Federation of Republican Women.

Pennsylvanians have held a handful of ambassadorships over the years. Carla Sands, Trump’s former ambassador to Denmark had roots in Camp Hill, and Dan Rooney, the son of Pittsburgh Steeler’s founder Art Rooney, was an ambassador to Ireland appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The current ambassador to Sweden is Erik Douglas Ramanathan, an attorney and political fundraiser who was appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed in 2021. The first U.S. ambassador to Sweden was Benjamin Franklin.

Staff writer Ryan Briggs contributed to this article.