Tony Blinken

Tony Blinken
Born	Antony John Blinken 1962-04-16 New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma mater	Dalton School, Harvard University, Columbia University
Religion	Jew
Parents	• Donald M. Blinken • Judith Blinken
Spouse	Evan Ryan
Member of	French-American Foundation/Young Leaders/1998, French-American Foundation/Young Leaders/2000, Trilateral Commission, WestExec Advisors, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Party	Democratic Party
US/Secretary of State  In office January 20, 2021 - Present  United States Deputy Secretary of State  In office January 9, 2015 - January 20, 2017 Appointed by Barack Obama Preceded by Wendy R. Sherman Succeeded by Tom Shannon  Deputy National Security Advisor  In office January 20, 2013 - January 9, 2015 Boss Susan Rice Succeeded by Avril Haines  National Security Advisor to the Vice President In office January 20, 2009 - January 20, 2013

Tony Blinken is an American government official and lobbyist who was chosen by President-elect Joe Biden as his nominee for the position of US Secretary of State, the role he assumed on 20 January 2021.

Tony Blinken had previously worked as Deputy National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2015 and Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017 under Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama.

Early Life

Blinken was born in New York City to Jewish parents, Judith (Frehm) and Donald M. Blinken, the former United States Ambassador to Hungary and one of the founders of deep state-connected private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

Tony's paternal grandfather, Maurice Henry Blinken was an early backer of Israel who and commissioned an economic feasibility study which argued that an independent Jewish state was economically viable there.

In 1971, age 9, he moved to Paris with his mother Judith and attorney Samuel Pisar, whom she married following her divorce from Donald.

Career

He was a member of the National Security Council (NSC) staff from 1994 to 2001. From 1994 to 1998, Blinken was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning and NSC Senior Director for Speechwriting. From 1999 to 2001, he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Canadian Affairs.

He supported the U.S.–led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Blinken assisted Biden in formulating a proposal in the Senate to establish in Iraq three independent regions divided along ethnic or sectarian lines.

From 2009 to 2013, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In this position he helped craft U.S. policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Blinken supported the 2011 military intervention in Libya and the supply of weapons to Syrian militias.

While nominally "expressing support for the democratically elected Turkish government",he tried to protect US assets by criticizing the purges of officers and others after the CIA-supported coup attempt in 2016.

At the American Jewish Committee Global Forum 2015, Blinken, then part of the Obama administration, promised "We will continue to stand with Israel and against one-sided, biased resolutions – even if we are the only country on earth to do so", a theme he repeated at an AIPAC Policy Luncheon in 2017, "Every year, at the UN in New York and its various governing bodies, the U.S. has taken the lead in either successfully blocking anti-Israel resolutions" and "and reiterated our commitment to stand with Israel at the UN now and for all time."

He supported the Saudi-led and US backed invasion of Yemen.

WestExec Lobbyism

In 2020, Blinken disclosed the clients he advised through WestExec Advisors. Those clients included the investment giant Blackstone, Bank of America, Facebook, Uber, McKinsey & Company, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, the investment bank Lazard, Boeing, AT&T, the Royal Bank of Canada, LinkedIn and Sotheby’s auction house. WestExec has paid Blinken nearly $1.2 million during 2018-19, with another estimated $250,000 to $500,000 owed for his work in 2020.

Pine Island

Blinken, as well as other Biden transition team members Michele Flournoy, former Pentagon advisor, and Lloyd Austin, nominee for US Secretary of Defense, was a partner of private equity firm Pine Island Capital Partners, a strategic partner of WestExec. Pine Island's chairman is John Thain, the final chairman of Merrill Lynch before its sale to Bank of America.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
2021	“In a blunt opening statement before the talks in private, Mr Anthony Blinken said the US would "discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies". "Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability," he said. In response, Mr Yang Jiechi accused Washington of using its military might and financial supremacy to suppress other countries. "It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exchanges, and incite some countries to attack China," he added. Mr Yang said human rights in the US were at a low point, with black Americans being "slaughtered".”	US China	March 2021

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Munich Security Conference/2009	2009	2009	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 45th Munich Security Conference
Munich Security Conference/2013	1 February 2013	3 February 2013	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 49th Munich Security Conference
Munich Security Conference/2019	15 February 2019	17 February 2019	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 55th Munich Security Conference, which included "A Spreading Plague" aimed at "identifying gaps and making recommendations to improve the global system for responding to deliberate, high consequence biological events."
Munich Security Conference/2022	18 February 2022	20 February 2022	Germany Munich Bavaria	Slightly less than 1/3 of the 664 of the participants have pages here
Munich Security Conference/2023	17 February 2023	19 February 2023	Germany Munich Bavaria	Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists. The real decisions are made by deep politicians behind the scenes, elsewhere.
Munich Security Conference/2024	16 February 2024	18 February 2024	Germany Munich Bavaria	Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists - in their own bubble, far from the concerns of their subjects

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:F-16 for Ukraine - An open letter to Joseph Biden	open letter	8 May 2023	Anders Åslund Karel Schwarzenberg Eerik-Niiles Kross Jarno Limnéll Andreas Umland Vytautas Landsbergis Nathalie Tocci Alberto Alemanno Roderich Kiesewetter Anton Hofreiter	Open letter to US President Joe Biden from European deep state minions, pleading for an escalation in Ukraine, and NATO membership. Lo and behold, a week after the letter, Biden approved F-16s, indicating that the letter was astroturf to make a decision already decided seem like done by European demand... Includes barely hidden threatening of those that blocked NATO accession in 2008, who bear "a grave responsibility" and "will be careful not to hinder it again."
Document:How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline	Article	8 February 2023	Seymour Hersh	Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told Senator Ted Cruz: “Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea” (Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 January 2023).

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