Man Credited with Negotiating Iran Nuke Deal a key player in Benghazi Cover-up

Former Hillary Clinton Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan is obviously good at making bad deals. Earlier this year, he was identified as a key State Department figure who worked with the CIA to craft the now infamous Benghazi talking points that consisted of the lie that a video was responsible for the attacks. Now it’s been learned that two months prior to the Benghazi attack, Sullivan was part of another clandestine team that negotiated the extremely undesirable Iranian nuke deal.

Jake Sullivan: Benghazi talking points and Iran nuke deal.

Via Yahoo News / AP:

Last year, while Jake Sullivan was traveling with his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he quietly disappeared during a stop in Paris. He showed up again a few days later, rejoining Clinton’s traveling contingent in Mongolia.

In between, Sullivan secretly jetted to the Middle Eastern nation of Oman to meet with officials from Iran, people familiar with the trip said. The July 2012 meeting is one of the Obama administration’s earliest known face-to-face contacts with Iran and reveals that Sullivan – who moved from the State Department to the White House earlier this year – was personally involved in the administration’s outreach to the Islamic republic far earlier than had been reported.

In May of this year, the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes implicated Sullivan directly in both the crafting of Susan Rice’s demonstrably false talking points as well as the delivery of them to her. Emails sent in the hours and days before Sunday, September 16, 2012, indicate Sullivan’s high level of involvement in an egregious lie to the American people.

Mike Morell, deputy director of the CIA, agreed to work with Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to edit the talking points. At the time, Sullivan was deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department’s director of policy planning; he is now the top national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. Denis McDonough, then a top national security adviser to Obama and now his chief of staff, deferred on Rhodes’s behalf to Sullivan.

The email to Rice reported that Sullivan would work with a small group of individuals from the intelligence community to finalize the talking points on Saturday before sending them on to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which had originated the request for talking points.

The sender of the email spoke with Sullivan after the meeting, reminding him that Rice would be doing the Sunday morning shows and needed to receive the final talking points. Sullivan committed to making sure Rice was updated before the Sunday shows. The sender told Sullivan the name of the staffer (redacted in the email) who would be running Rice’s prep session and encouraged the team to keep Rice in the loop.

At 2:44 p.m., the author of the email to Rice followed up directly with Sullivan, asking for a copy of the talking points to help with Rice’s preparation for TV. Sullivan promised to provide them.

Susan Rice: Like Sullivan, she was promoted after Benghazi.

Back to the AP article about Sullivan’s involvement in the Iranian nuclear deal. Had this former deputy to Hillary Clinton been held accountable for his role in the Benghazi cover-up, any deal with Iran would not have involved him:

Senior administration officials had previously confirmed to The Associated Press that Sullivan and other officials held at least five secret meetings with Iran this year, paving the way for an interim nuclear agreement signed in November by Iran, the United States and five other world powers.

In fact, approximately five months after Benghazi, when the truth about Sullivan’s role in misleading the American people via Rice most assuredly had been known by the White House, Sullivan was promoted. He became Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser.

Despite Sullivan being intimately involved in the lie about a video being responsible for the Benghazi attacks, he was given more responsibility instead of being fired and branded. This reality should only further implicate the Obama administration. Yet, as a body, Congress remains relatively impotent.

Another very close and extremely trusted colleague of Hillary is still singing Sullivan’s praises as well:

“He’s essentially a once-in-a-generation talent,” said Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton aide who worked closely with Sullivan during their tenure at the State Department.

At what, crafting demonstrable lies to be spouted by the administration about what happened in Benghazi? Though Reines has high praise for Sullivan today, he cussed at one reporter who was looking for answers in the days after the Benghazi attacks.

Hillary and Reines share laugh with Senator John McCain.

Sullivan should be toxic; he is being praised by Clinton’s close aide more than six months after his role in the cover-up came to light. All of this says nothing about the allegiances of another close confidant of Hillary – Huma Abedin.

Based on what is known about Sullivan, the Iranian nuclear deal – in its present form – was negotiated, in part, by a man who should have long ago been jettisoned by the White House. That he was not torpedoes any narrative the White House puts forth about Benghazi or the Iran deal.