President Barack Obama's most secretive and controversial adviser isn't going anywhere, despite six years of whisper campaigns and public derision offered up by Republicans. Valerie Jarrett, the onetime aide to then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, was introduced to Obama by a young staffer then named Michelle Robinson. In short order she had the future leader of the free world's future plans mapped out and underway. It doesn't help her public image that she was born in Iran, albeit to American parents. Or that she's unelected and has never faced the Senate confirmation process. But American presidents have broad discretion to appoint their own advisers, and Jarrett now says she'll 'stay until the lights go off.' POWER: During a July 2014 broadcast interview with NBC, Jarrett showed off her office – including a picture frame decorated with figurines bowing to her . OBAMA-WHISPERER: Jarrett is the president's closest adviser but has never faced an election or a Senate confirmation vote . The New York Times Magazine interviewed Jarrett for a feature published on Friday, hearing her say that her relationship to Obama is nothing like the famously cozy one between former President George W. Bush and Vice Presdient Dick Cheney. 'Please don't say that. Stop right there,' she insisted. 'The president listens to people who have interesting things to say – that could be the most junior person on the staff or it could be a senior adviser or it could be a person who whispers something to him across a rope line.' There's nothing new about close advisers in the White House, not even with the spacious West Wing office Jarrett has occupied since 2009. George W. Bush had Karen Hughes. Bill Clinton had Bruce Lindsey. Ronald Reagan had Michael Deaver. Thomas Jefferson had James Madison. 'NIGHT-STALKER': Jarrett has access to both the West Wing and the upstairs presidential residence, drawing resentment from other senior staff . But a Republican congressional staffer who requested anonymity spoke frankly about Jarrett on Friday, telling Daily Mail Online that she 'is clearly Obama's Rasputin, subtlely steering the ship of state.' 'Valerie Jarrett has the kind of influence on the federal government that the Constitution was designed to prevent,' the staffer said. The New Republic once reported on quiet discussions with an unnamed former Obama administration official who explained aides' resentment of her all-hours access status with the first family – a situation that has earned her the nickname 'the night stalker.' 'It’s pretty toxic,' the official said. 'She went to whatever meeting she wanted to go to – basically all of them – and then would go and whisper to the president. Or at least everyone believed she did. ... People don’t trust the process. They think she’s a spy.' Jarrett told the Times that having Obama's ear and knowing his instincts 'initially it probably made people a little uncomfortable,' but 'I think that has faded. I just want to do my job, and part of my job for the president is to be his friend.' 'WHATEVER MEETING SHE WANTED': Jarrett reportedly has carte blanche to sit in with Obama wherever and whenever she chooses – including this February 2014 sit-down with business leaders where she sat closer to the president than former secretary of state Colin Powell . 'RASTPUTIN': A Republican congressional aide likened Jarrett to Grigori Rasputin, the mystical Russian faith healer who earned the nickname 'mad monk' as he wielded influence over Tsar Nicholas II and his wife . What hasn't faded is the Washington-wide perception that she has outsize influence. Recent books and White House interviews have fed that fire more oxygen. In his book 'Leading From Behind,' noted terrorism expert and multiple New York Times best-selling author Richard Miniter reported that the president called off – three times – a planned the Navy SEAL raid that killed al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. It was Jarrett who persuaded him to step back each time, according to Miniter's sources. The White House later denied his account. And Ed Klein, whose book 'Blood Feud' traced the arc of a decade-long rivalry between the Obamas and the Clintons, said Wednesday on the Fox News Channel that the White House – not scheming Republicans – is behind the swirling scandal over Hillary Clinton's secret email server. Klein cited sources who told him Jarrett and Obama are jointly behind it since neither wants sto see Mrs. Clinton measuring the Oval Office's drapes. White House staffers, he told Fox News, are seeing 'tons of documents being wheeled through the corridors from Clinton’s old offices, and they’re going through these looking for problems on her expense account, on her dealings with foreign leaders.' 'All of this, I’m told, is prompted by Valerie Jarrett and the president, who do not want to see Hillary Clinton president of the United States,' Klein said. EXCUSE? Jarrett explanied away the bow-to-me photo frame on Twitter . In a profile published during Obama's first year in office, the president told The Independent that 'Valerie is one of my oldest friends. Over time, I think our relationship evolved to the point where she's like a sibling to me ... I trust her completely.' He trusts Jarrett, he said, 'to speak for me, particularly when we're dealing with delicate issues.' Obama also trusts her, it seems, to give TV interviews like the one she granted NBC News last July. Her message, though, was overshadowed by a camera shot of a framed photo of herself of a bookshelf – complete with three figurines posed bowing in homage to her image. Jarrett later fell back on a tweet claiming it was 'a gag gift.'
Valerie Jarrett helped launch the president's political career in Chicago is never far from the Obamas . A Republican congressional aide says she 'Obama's Rasputin, subtlely steering the ship of state'
Seen as Obama's top domestic policy adviser, is often pictured closest to him and has a vote on cabinet appointments . Helped decide to send Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson, Missouri – in a conversation that Holder wasn't a part of .