"Mr. Sullivan has routinely misled the entire government about the status of security threats around the world," Blackburn said.
October 15, 2023
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Sunday demanded President Joe Biden remove U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan from his position for his response to problems in the Middle East following the attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists backed by Iran.
"Mr. Sullivan has routinely misled the entire government about the status of security threats around the world. Just eight days before Hamas launched their barbaric surprise attack against Israel, he stated, 'the Middle East is quieter today than it has been in two decades,'" Blackburn said Friday.
At least 1,300 people died, including at least 29 U.S. citizens as well as women, children and the elderly, following Hamas' brutal terrorist attack in Israel last Saturday. At least 15 U.S. citizens are still missing, while Hamas claims to have about 100 people being held hostage.
When Sullivan was asked about those remarks Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said: "I made those comments in the context of developments in the wider Middle East region over the last few years. ... The sentence before what you just played, I said, in fact, that this was for now and that it could all change."
Blackburn also slammed Sullivan's response to Iran, after he worked to create the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, which the Trump administration reversed and the Biden administration has been attempting to reestablish.
"Easing sanctions against Iran and refusing to enforce others is not an effective solution, and this attack is clear evidence of that fact," Blackburn said.
His problematic decisions involving Iran, Hamas and Israel follow the mistakes he made with Afghanistan when the Taliban took over the country in August 2021, Blackburn said.
"Sullivan’s deleterious mistakes with respect to Iran and Iran-backed Hamas only build on his earlier involvement in the administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. There, we stood by and watched the Taliban take over the country in less than two weeks," she said. "We cannot have someone with his notable history of poor decision-making, and lack of critical insights, as the most senior advisor to the President on our nation’s security matters."
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Jake Sullivan testified in 2017 it was "absurd" to suggest the Clinton campaign spread "fake Russian information." Court evidence says otherwise.
By John Solomon
February 14, 2022
Special Counsel John Durham's investigation isn't just imposing accountability for Hillary Clinton's 2016 political trick to dirty up Donald Trump with the FBI; it's also encroaching on the credibility of President Biden's current chief foreign policy adviser and point man for the current Russia-Ukraine crisis.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was a senior adviser to Clinton's 2016 campaign and, by his own admission, spread the word to reporters back then that Democrats believed Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin to hijack the election and had a secret computer channel to the Kremlin. Neither proved true.
But long before that Russia collusion narrative crumbled like a stale Starbucks muffin, Sullivan gave sworn testimony to the House Intelligence Committee disputing that anything the Clinton campaign spread around Washington was misinformation.
"Are you aware of any collusion, coordination, or conspiracy by yourself or by any other members of the campaign that you were working with to procure fake Russian information to harm Donald Trump?" Sullivan was asked in December 2017.
Sullivan responded without ambiguity. "I mean, you will forgive me if I want to say more than just an emphatic 'No' to that answer, because I find that totally absurd," he answered.
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SullivanDepoHouseIntelDec2017.pdf
But Durham's court filings in two cases last fall — one against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann and the other against the primary source for the discredited Christopher Steele dossier — call into question that assertion. Both defendants are charged with lying to the FBI.
Sullivan is not accused of wrongdoing. But court filings in those cases state that Sullivan — identified in the Sussmann indictment only as a Clinton "foreign policy advisor" — engaged in email traffic with other Clinton campaign officials and lawyers about a story leaked to the news media suggesting Trump had a secret communications system with Russia via a computer server at the Moscow-based Alfa Bank.
"On or about September 15, 2016 Campaign Lawyer-1 exchanged emails with the Clinton campaign's campaign manager, communications director, and foreign policy advisor concerning the Russian Bank-1 allegations that Sussmann had recently shared with Reporter 1," the Sussmann indictment stated.
"Campaign Lawyer-1 billed his time for this correspondence to the Clinton campaign with the billing entry 'email correspondence with [name of foreign policy advisor], [name of campaign manager], [name of communications director] re: Russian Bank -1 article.'"
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That revelation places Sullivan squarely in the loop of conversations designed to spread a story that the FBI, former Russia Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and Durham's team all have deemed false.
A month after those email conversations — with the Trump-Clinton presidential race coming down to the wire — the story containing the Alfa Bank allegations surfaced in the mainstream news media in late October 2016.
And it was Sullivan who jumped into action, issuing a statement adding legitimacy to the article's claim. "This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow," Sullivan said in the statement. "Computer scientists have uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."
His statement also gave his boss, Hillary Clinton, the opportunity to retweet it.
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank," Clinton crowed in an effort to get the media to cover the allegations.
By the time Sullivan issued the statement, there was already substantial reason to doubt the article. The FBI was already telling this reporter and the New York Times that it had ruled out the secret communications channel and that the pings the computer researchers allegedly found could be explained by basic marketing communications.
Durham's recent court filings reveal that some of the very computer executives who were advising the Clinton campaign and its lawyer on the allegation strongly doubted the conclusions themselves.
Durham refers to emails between the various players who assisted the research that said they were looking simply for "an inference" or a "very useful narrative" that could make it look like Trump was in bed with Russia.
But the tech company executive who led the effort himself wrote an email two months before the stories were published casting doubt on the evidence.
"Tech Executive-I expressed his own belief that the 'trump-email.com' domain (referring to the subject of the allegations that SUSSMANN conveyed to the FBI) was not a secret communications channel with Russian Bank-1, but 'a red herring,'" Durham wrote in the Sussman indictment.
File
Other participants in the research expressed similar doubt. "How do we plan to defend against the criticism that this is not spoofed traffic," one wrote in an Aug. 22, 2016 email.
So Durham court fillings not only establish the story was proven false, they also show there was reason to doubt it even before Sullivan lent his name and foreign policy credentials to it.
The court filings so far provide no evidence Sullivan was told directly about the concerns, but experts told Just the News that as the senior national security adviser to the Clinton campaign he had an obligation to check it out before spreading it to the media.
"If you're the national security adviser, or you're the foreign policy advisor for presidential candidate Secretary Hillary Clinton, you got to be able to look at the information and vet it before you make a conclusion," said Daniel Hoffman, a respected CIA officer who was the agency's station chief in Moscow.
"He never challenged his own assumption, and he never challenged the information he was receiving," he added.
GOP Rep. Rodney Davis: Jake Sullivan has 'no credibility’, RussiaGate targeting Trump, was 'direct attack on America’, its ‘freedoms’GOP Rep. Rodney Davis: Jake Sullivan has 'no credibility’, RussiaGate targeting Trump, was 'direct attack on America’, its ‘freedoms’
Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said he has concerns about the accuracy of Sullivan's testimony back in 2017 and the fact that today he serves as Biden's national security adviser. Nunes recently retired to become head of Trump's new tech and social media company.
"Well, it sure doesn't look like it," Nunes said when asked about whether Sullivan's testimony was accurate. "Because he was one of the propagandists that was out there all through the 2016 election that was promoting this, promoting this in great detail.
"Look, that seems like everybody who was involved in the Russia hoax was actually promoted. So if you were in the Obama White House, and you participated in this hoax, you got a major promotion, you got a new job."
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), another lawmaker who played a role in exposing falsehoods in the Russia collusion narrative, said Sullivan should face investigation to determine what he knows.
"Just because you're getting paid by Hillary Clinton, just because you are Hillary Clinton, or you're associated with Hillary Clinton, you don't get some free pass from the justice system," Zeldin told Just the News.
Brian Stekloff, the attorney who represented Sullivan at the 2017 deposition, did not immediately return a call Monday seeking comment.
In his 2017 testimony, Sullivan argued he was justified in pushing the Trump narrative because the Clinton campaign felt under attack by Russia after allegations of hacked emails surfaced in the summer of 2016.
"We feared that we were under attack, not just by the Russians, but by a coordinated, with the Trump campaign as well," he said at the time.
In the end, every investigation that looked at the collusion allegations concluded there was none between Trump and Russia, although U.S. officials believe Moscow on its own did engage in hacking and leaking of Clinton-related emails.
Beyond the legal implications, experts said Sullivan's role in spreading a now-disproven allegation against a campaign rival could undercut his credibility with U.S. allies in his current role as Biden's national security adviser, especially during the current Russia-Ukraine crisis.
"I can't say what the leadership in Ukraine is thinking about this White House and the various characters who populate it, as well as the State and Defense Department. But I'm sure based on what you've just said, they have a lot of questions about pronouncements coming out from those very people about intelligence that relates to their life and death," former State Department adviser Kiron Skinner told Just the News on Monday. "I think that that would absolutely be the case."
National Security Adviser-designate Jake Sullivan was key figure in Clinton email probe; Secretary of State designate Tony Blinken faced scrutiny in Hunter Biden business deals.
By John Solomon
November 23, 2020
Joe Biden reached deep into the Obama Administration's alumni for his prospective Cabinet – should he be certified the winner of the 2020 election – and in so doing also threatened to resurrect old scandals like Hillary Clinton's email debacle and the Hunter Biden influence controversy.
Biden on Monday announced he wanted as his national security advisor former State Department official Jake Sullivan, who at 43 years old would be the youngest in history. Biden also chose longtime Senate and White House aide Antony Blinken to be his secretary of state should he be sworn in on Jan. 20.
While both picks command enormous respect in national security circles, their past ties to Obama-era scandals could give Republicans fodder for confirmation hearings. Sullivan was a key figure in the probe of Clinton’s mishandling of classified information on a private email server, while Blinken had contacts with Hunter Biden and his Burisma Holdings colleagues in the Ukraine impeachment drama.
Emails recovered from Clinton’s private email server show Sullivan was among the senior State officials to regularly correspond with the secretary of state using the insecure communications channel, including sending her information that was subsequently deemed to be classified at the top secret and secret level.
For instance Sullivan emailed Clinton on her personal account a memo about Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on June 7, 2012, a topic later to be determined to classified at the “secret” level. Clinton responded several hours later:
“I’m even more determined to do this and have some ideas I want to discuss w[ith] you,” Clinton wrote Sullivan.
At the time, U.S.-Pakistani relations were facing a difficult patch as Khar was demanding the United States apologize for an airstrike that killed 26 Pakistanis the previous day.
In other classified emails made public under lawsuits from the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, Sullivan:
In an April 2019 deposition with Judicial Watch, Sullivan acknowledged he had used the private email server frequently but never intended to transmit classified information.
“Like Secretary Clinton has said herself, I wish she had used a State Department account,” he testified. “It wasn’t really part of my job to be thinking about Secretary Clinton’s emails so I don’t think I sort of fell down directly in my job, but do I wish I had thought of it during the time we were at State. Of course. I mean, what human being at this point wouldn’t have thought of that?”
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, said his group’s open records lawsuits exposed serious lapses in judgement by Sullivan.
“Jake Sullivan is a central figure in the Clinton email scandal and the related cover-up of the Benghazi terrorist attack,” Fitton told Just the News. “That he has yet to be held accountable for misusing classified information is another scandal. He can’t be trusted with the nation’s secrets.”
Sullivan also played a smaller role in the Russia scandal, admitting to the House Intelligence Committee he peddled now-disproven allegations of Trump-Russia collusion to news organizations like ABC, FOX, CBS and NBC during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Basically we sat with them and walked through what we understood to be the case from – in terms of the DNC hack and leak, what we believed to be the case with respect to Russian involvement and then what we thought the upshot of this was, which is you now have the start of a much more aggressive phase of an intelligence-led operation by foreign power,” reads Sullivan’s transcript.
“And that was essentially the presentation that we made to reporters and producers, without an ask, simply to say: This dynamic is unusual, perhaps unprecedented, when you pull all of the factors together. And it's going to be an important issue between now and November 8th, when the election occurs,” Sullivan added.
Blinken’s name came up earlier this summer in a Senate investigation into Hunter Biden’s overseas business activities. Blinken had served with Joe Biden in the Senate, as national security adviser to the vice president and deputy secretary of state.
For instance, documents released by the State Department show that on March 22, 2015, Hunter Biden emailed his father’s longtime trusted aide seeking a meeting, nearly a year after Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma as the energy company battled corruption allegations in Ukraine.
“Have a few minutes next week to grab a cup of coffee? I know you are impossibly busy, but would like to get your advice on a couple of things, Best, Hunter,” Biden wrote.
Blinken responded the same day with an “absolutely” and added, “Look forward to seeing you.”
Records indicate the two men were scheduled to meet the afternoon of May 27, 2015, although it is unclear whether the meeting took place. But other State Department memos, confirm Hunter Biden met with Blinken for lunch on July 22, 2015, at the State Department.
Two days later, on July 24, 2015, Vice President Joe Biden called President Poroshenko of the Ukraine and raised concerns about anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
On February 4, 2016, Hunter Biden sent a notification to Blinken indicating he was following Blinken on Twitter.
A few months later, two lawyers working for the Democratic lobbying and consulting firm Blue Star Strategies who were representing Burisma made efforts to lobby Blinken to get State Department officials to stop taking a negative view on Burisma.
One of the lawyers, Sally Painter, sent an email to State on June 27, 2016, indicating she had broached the subject with Blinken at a public event and was trying to set up a follow-up coffee with the deputy secretary of state.
"Per my conversation with Tony at the Truman event, Karen Tramontano and I would like to have a brief coffee with Tony at his earliest convenience regarding troubling events we are seeing in Ukraine," Painter wrote.
In a deposition, Painter expanded on what she was trying to do, hoping to get a State Department supervisor in the U.S. embassy named George Kent to stop taking a negative view of Blue Star’s work on Burisma.
“I've known Tony – I've known Mr. Blinken over 25 years as a professional colleague. … We wanted to get his guidance on how to deal with Mr. Kent,” she said.
Painter said she never got the follow-up audience with Blinken.
GOP Rep. Rodney Davis: Jake Sullivan has 'no credibility’, RussiaGate targeting Trump, was 'direct attack on America’, its ‘freedoms’GOP Rep. Rodney Davis: Jake Sullivan has 'no credibility’, RussiaGate targeting Trump, was 'direct attack on America’, its ‘freedoms’
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) weighs in on the recent news dropped over the weekend by John Durham exposing the extent of the Clinton campaign spying and concocting the “Russian Collusion” story, saying that “it is absolutely treasonous and should have never happen in a country like ours, somebody needs to go to jail for what they tried to do to President Trump, and anyone associated with him.” The Congressman went on to comment on the credibility of Jake Sullivan, who is the current National Security Adviser to President Biden and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, saying that not only does he “have a credibility gap”, but Sullivan’s actions “is a direct attack on America and America’s freedoms”. Spying “on a presidential campaign of the other party, creating lies that they know are not true, trying to link Trump to Russia before he was President…these are offenses that need to be investigated.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper confronted National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan over reported brutalities against civilians in Gaza versus those in Ukraine during a Sunday segment of “State of the Union.”
Tapper pointed to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken lamenting Russian President Vladimir Putin in November 2022 for cutting off heat, electricity and water supplies to Ukrainians. Civilians living in the Gaza Strip have reportedly lost access to these needs after Israel ordered a “complete siege” on the Palestinian enclave in response to the surprise Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas.
“Now look, Israel is not Russia, Gaza is not Ukraine, it’s a different situation. But cutting off supplies, cutting off heat, cutting off water to civilians, what’s the difference?” Tapper asked Sullivan.
“Well first, thank you for saying that Israel is not Russia because Israel is not Russia,” Sullivan began. “Secondly— ”
“But, civilians are civilians, Jake. Civilians are civilians,” Tapper interjected.
Sullivan claimed Israelis reportedly informed him that they had returned water access to civilians in southern Gaza. Sullivan went on to say the United States is committed to working with Israel, the United Nations and other allies to protect civilians in Gaza. (RELATED: ‘Bodies Cut In Half’: Witnesses Describe ‘Nightmare’ Scenes In Wake Of Hamas Terrorist Attack)
“Yes, absolutely they are. They deserve access to water and medicine and food and we are working actively to make sure that that happens and I can tell you this morning, Jake, that I have been in touch with my Israeli counterparts just within the last hour who report to me that they have in fact turned the water back on in southern Gaza,” Sullivan said.
“That has been the subject for discussion over the course of the last few days,” Sullivan continued. “The United States is gonna continue working with Israel, with the U.N., with Egypt, with Jordan and a lot of the groups on the ground to make sure that innocent Palestinians get access to those basic necessities and are protected from bombardment because they deserve that right. The right to those necessities and the right to safety and security every bit as much as Ukrainians, civilians do, or civilians anywhere do.”
Israel’s siege on Gaza led to the only existing power station in Gaza to cease working Wednesday after it ran out of needed fuel, CNN reported. Hospitals, bakeries and other essential places in Gaza are set to completely run out of fuel and lead to “catastrophic” conditions, leading many to shut down, according to the outlet.
The U.N. World Food Programme warned it is “running out of supplies” to provide food and ingredients to people in Gaza, CNN reported.
Tapper pressed Sullivan on the administration allegedly not negotiating with Israel to allow civilians to have access to basic needs.
“But you’re not telling the Israelis to allow Palestinian hospitals to have power,” Tapper said.
“Our position is that hospitals should be able to function, hospitals should not be targeted, people should be able to get access to life support and medical care,” Sullivan answered. “We don’t qualify these statements, we don’t say that there’s some kind of caveat. These are simple, clear, declarative statements. It is our position that’s consistent with the law of armed conflict, law of war. It’s consistent with our view as we represented it.”
Hamas’ attack on Israel has left at least 1,300 people dead, including 29 Americans, according to CNN. Hamas terrorists have reportedly murdered, raped and tortured innocent civilians in Israel since the relentless attack. Several reports and images claim terrorists slaughtered at least 40 babies last week, with some reportedly being decapitated. Other images have shown dead Israeli adults and children charred after apparently being burned alive.
sullivan claims biden admin considered the national security implications of releasing russian arms dealer