On April 21, 2017, days after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was expelled from Ecuador embassy and arrested, Blinken said he would have loved to have seen Obama admin find a way to charge Assange.
The entire exchange on Trump administration indicting Assange is rather incredible because Blinken says:

(a) WikiLeaks "colluded" with Russia so that justifies prosecution (yet that's not part of the case)

(b) He'd rather focus on prosecuting Snowden, who is not a publisher
Blinken co-founded WestExec Advisors with Michelle Flournoy, a hawk. He cashed "in on his international connections" and "years of face time with Saudi, Israeli, and Chinese leaders."

Jonathan Guyer of The American Prospect reported on this in July: https://prospect.org/world/how-biden-foreign-policy-team-got-rich/
Avril Haines is Biden's pick for director of national intelligence (DNI).

She was principal deputy national security adviser to Obama. In 2013, she was appointed CIA deputy director.

If confirmed, she'll be first woman to run America's massive post-9/11 surveillance state.
Haines is celebrated for taking interest in international law and advocating for changes to how Obama administration authorized drone strikes.

She played a role in giving Obama's assassination policy a shinier veneer of legality that could further entrench this killing in govt.
Haines worked under former CIA director John Brennan and is a Brennan loyalist, who came to his defense (along with several other former security officials) after Trump revoked Brennan's security clearances. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000165-472c-d4e8-ade7-7fbce0330002
Haines is on board of directors for Center for a New American Security (CNAS), which is funded by weapons manufacturers (Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon), big banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America), and fossil fuel corporations (BP America, Chevron).
Oh, and this war industry-funded think tank is also funded by Palantir, the US National Intelligence Council, and the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
Jake Sullivan is Biden's pick for national security adviser.

Sullivan was a senior policy adviser for Hillary Clinton's 2016 and 2008 presidential campaigns.

He was also a national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
Sullivan is part of Alliance for Securing Democracy's Advisory Council, which includes Michael Chertoff, former DHS secretary; Bill Kristol, a neocon who pushed for Iraq War; Mike Morell, former CIA director; John Podesta, former Clinton campaign chairman. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/about-us/advisory-council/
The Alliance for Securing Democracy developed a "disinformation" tracker called Hamilton 68 that they claimed could identify Russian influence operations. It misidentified real people as Russian bots - even singling out Stars and Stripes newspaper. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/914623741811937281
On April 13, 2017, after Trump launched 59 missiles against a Syrian air base in response to an alleged chemical attack, Sullivan cheered the strike during an appearance on CNN.

The retaliation was never legally justified.
Also, in the same CNN appearance, Sullivan said he believed Obama should've attacked Syria like Trump had done.

He also criticized Congress for "dragging" their feet on authorization for strikes in Syria.
During the same CNN appearance in 2017, Sullivan said Trump appeared to have used the "Mother of All Bombs" appropriately.

"In principle, using this weapon for this kind of purpose is an appropriate step for the military to take."
Also from this CNN appearance in 2017—Sullivan backed then-CIA director Mike Pompeo's evidence-free claim that WikiLeaks is a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

And urged Trump to "reinforce" what Pompeo said.
In same speech, Pompeo said Assange had “no First Amendment freedoms” because “he is not a U.S. citizen."

“We’ve had administrations before that have been squeamish about going after these folks under some concept of this right-to-publish," Pompeo added.
Much like Pompeo, Jake Sullivan is rather biased because WikiLeaks exposed emails he sent during Hillary Clinton's failed 2020 presidential campaign. That exposed him to unwanted scrutiny over matters that were of public interest.
Alejandro Mayorkas is Biden's pick for secretary of Homeland Security.

In the Obama administration, he was deputy secretary of homeland security and director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The Obama administration, according to American Immigration Council, backed several policies intended to "send a message" to "Central Americans that the trip to the United States was not worth the risk, and they would be better off staying put."
Like Mayorkas declared in June 2014, "We are surging resources to increase our capacity to detain individuals and adults with children, and to handle immigration court hearings."

DHS engaged in "expedited removal," or deportations, of asylum-seekers. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/20/press-call-efforts-enhance-enforcement-southwest-border
Immigrant rights groups wrote a letter to Mayorkas and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson in February 2016 that urged them to end family detention and halt fast-track processes that deprived asylum seekers of due process rights.
https://www.lawg.org/wp-content/uploads/storage/documents/JohnsonMayorkas_letter_final_signed_2232016.pdf
Mayorkas was director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from 2009-2013, and as documented by ACLU, USCIS oversaw blacklist of Arabs, Middle Easterners, Muslims, and South Asians who may apply for citizenship.
https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/carrp-muslims-need-not-apply-aclu-socal-report.pdf
As ACLU and other groups described in 2013, "USCIS has been blacklisting law-abiding applicants [due to] 'national security concerns' based on lawful religious activity, national origin, and innocuous associations."
CORRECTION: This quote is from April 2017, not April 2019. So that means Assange was still in the Ecuador embassy and had not been arrested. Blinken was responding to reports that Trump's Justice Department had found a way to charge Assange. https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1331067888288010242?s=20
John Kerry is Biden's pick for special presidential envoy for climate.

Kerry, former secretary of state under Obama, is known as "architect" of Paris climate agreement.

It contained no enforceable mechanisms for ensuring countries met meager benchmarks for cutting emissions.
Kerry is a believer in carbon pricing, a "market solution" to climate disruption that is favored by neoliberals.

He is an adviser to a fund on the New York Stock Exchange launched by Climate Finance Partners, to "innovate" so-called carbon markets.
In 2019, during interview for HEATED, Kerry maintained polarization is the problem and corporations that push for natural gas to be a "bridge fuel" for a "longer period" are actually meaningfully contributing to "healthy debate."

https://heated.world/p/a-conversation-with-john-kerry
You can follow @kgosztola.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: