Tony Blinken will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday afternoon, the last day in which Republicans have full control of the Senate and are able to lead the discussion. Blinken is a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, and has been an analyst for CNN. He represents much of the faulty conventional wisdom that remained unchallenged in the foreign policy establishment until President Donald Trump.
Here are seven key facts about him that could be addressed:
1. Blinken pushed the Russia collusion hoax on CNN. Blinken is one of several members of Joe Bidens foreign policy team who endorsed the destructive conspiracy theory that Trump was in cahoots with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told CNN in 2017: The presidents ongoing collusion with Russias plans is really striking, intentional or not. He added that Trumps criticism of the FBI or Special Counsel Robert Mueller meant he was doing Mr. Putins bidding.
2. Blinken is weak on China. Blinken said as recently as September that it would be a mistake to fully decouple from China despite Chinas abuse of trade agreements, its aggression in the western Pacific, its human rights abuses, and its geopolitical ambitions. In July, Blinken promised that Biden would engage China and work with China, in areas where our interests clearly overlap. He included climate change and global health and pandemics as areas for cooperation.
3. Blinken praised open borders in Germany. In 2016, as then-candidate Donald Trump was campaigning on the promise to secure U.S. borders against mass migration, Blinken praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for opening her countrys borders to large numbers of Syrian refugees. He portrayed Trumps pledge to build a wall on the southern U.S. border as an example of xenophobia, equating open borders with western values of tolerance and openness.
4. Blinken apologized to anti-Israel radical Linda Sarsour. Many even on the left consider Sarsour antisemitic for her association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and for barring pro-Israel Jewish women from the Womens March. After Sarsour participated in a Democratic National Convention event last summer, the Biden campaign publicly distanced itself from her. But Blinken apologized to her privately: My apologies for what we did and what happened.
5. Blinken advised major Big Tech companies and other Wall Street corporations. The Biden campaign has pushed Silicon Valley to restrict the free speech of conservatives, and has applauded the ongoing censorship of the president and many of his supporters. As Breitbart News noted earlier this month, Blinken founded WestEx Advisors, which worked with Facebook and LinkedIn, among others. He earned more than one million dollars over the past two years in that role.
6. Blinken backed the Iraq War then backed a plan to divide the country. Blinken, who worked for then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, advised his boss to vote to authorize war in Iraq. As the war effort stalled, Blinken reportedly helped craft Mr. Bidens proposal in the Senate to create three autonomous regions in Iraq, partitioned by ethnic or sectarian identity, which was widely rejected, the New York Times reported.
7. Blinken helped shape President Barack Obamas failed Iran policy. As deputy secretary of state under Obama, Blinken was an influential behind-the-scenes player in the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, the Times noted, setting up a deal that would allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Blinken criticized Trump for leaving the deal: By blowing up up the Iran nuclear deal President Trump puts us on a collision course with Iran and our closest allies.