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Apparently they thought that it was the sedate forum. Back-slapping lovefest is metaphorical.

In 2014, Antony Blinken had already been a National Security-Foreign Policy advisor within the Clinton and Obama White House and US Senate for a decade: “ From 2009 to 2013, Blinken 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 the nuclear program of Iran. Blinken was sworn in as deputy national security advisor… on January 20, 2013… On December 16, 2014, Blinken was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of State by the Senate by a vote of 55 to 38… A 2013 profile described him as “one of the government’s key players in drafting Syria policy”… Blinken was influential in formulating the Obama administration’s response to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation….” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken

The late US Senator John McCain, Dec. 16, 2014: “I would like to say I wish Mr. Blinken’s words were matched by his deeds…I believe history will hold this administration accountable… History will hold those individuals who are part of this administration, who allowed these slaughters to go on—a dismemberment of a country called Ukraine, the first time a European country has been departitioned since World War II; the needless slaughter of thousands and thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children, and the thousands and thousands of Syrian children. The list goes on and on…Not only is Mr. Blinken unqualified, but he is, I believe, a threat to the traditional interests and values that embody the United States of America.”

And, who was responsible for the Crimea policy? Antony Blinken. Is it coincidence that Blinken’s mother became a member of the Russian Academy of Arts in 2012?
“When I tell my colleagues, when I tell my fellow citizens that we will not supply the Ukraine people with defensive weapons, they don’t believe me. They have watched the country dismembered. They have watched Crimea go. They have watched the shoot-down on an airliner that nobody talks about anymore, and they continue to create unrest and killing in eastern Ukraine, and we will not even supply the Ukrainians with weapons with which to defend themselves.” (US Senator John McCain, Dec. 16, 2014).

Apparently it’s the Cindy McCain Institute and not the John McCain Institute. US Secretary of State Blinken was invited to participate “in a keynote conversation at the McCain Institute”, and allowed to prattle along unchallenged.

US Senator John McCain’s (who was no fan of Trump, either) dire warnings about Antony Blinken’s nomination to be Deputy Secretary of State on December 16, 2014 were ignored: “I rise to discuss my opposition to the pending vote concerning Mr. Anthony “Tony” Blinken, who is not only un-qualified, but, in fact, in my view, one of the worst selections of a very bad lot that this President has chosen… In this case, this individual has actually been dangerous to America and to the young men and women who are fighting and serving our country… In his capacity as an assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser, Mr. Blinken has been a functionary and an agent of a U.S. foreign policy that has made the world much less safe today… U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles….”. https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2024/03/20/us-senator-john-mccain-warned-that-tony-blinken-is-dangerous-to-america-and-the-world/ The entire speech is both at the link, as well as further below in today’s blog post, after our commentary.

Mrs. McCain certainly isn’t her husband or anything like him. She was appointed to a position by Biden which put her under Blinken and she apparently ate some Blinken space cakes (metaphorically). “Ambassador Cindy McCain, U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Food Agencies in Rome” May 10, 2022 https://www.state dot gov/online-press-briefing-with-ambassador-cindy-mccain-u-s-permanent-representative-to-the-un-food-agencies-in-rome/

What’s really sad and shocking is that US Senator Romney, who was supposed to ask the questions, let Blinken prattle along unchallenged. Blinken’s been part of failed government decision making for thirty years. Blinken did allude to Romney being right about Russia. In 2012 Romney called Russia “our number one geopolitical foe“. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney

In 2012, Blinken was crafting US foreign policy, as Deputy Assistant to the US President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken Blinken’s mother, became a member of the Russian Academy of Arts in late 2012, after Putin became President again.

Friday May 3rd, 2024: Blinken sounded like he had been given talking points in advance: “Secretary Blinken participates in a keynote conversation at the McCain Institute”: https://www.youtube.com/live/ocoS2BTsNHc

Recall who was Biden’s advisor when he “accused Romney of having a “Cold War mentality” and being “uninformed” on foreign policy”? Antony Blinken. In 2012, “In an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, Romney called Russia “our number one geopolitical foe”.[359][360]… it became a focal point for Democratic attacks on Romney during the campaign.[361][362][363] Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, called Romney’s position “dated” and said Russia had been an ally in solving problems,[364] while Joe Biden, then vice president, accused Romney of having a “Cold War mentality” and being “uninformed” on foreign policy.[365][366] John Kerry, then a senator, called Romney’s comments “breathtakingly off target”[367] and reiterated that position at the Democratic National Convention, saying, “He’s even blurted out the preposterous notion that Russia is our number one political geopolitical foe.”[368] Romney defended his remarks, saying, “The nation which consistently opposes our actions at the United Nations has been Russia … Russia is a geopolitical foe in that regard”,[369] and continued to defend his position in the presidential debates.[370]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney

We need someone like John McCain to convince Biden to FIRE Tony Blinken as US Secretary of State, as well as firing Blinken’s cronies! Recall that McCain was no fan of Trump! If Blinken isn’t fired pronto we may not make it to 2025, and if we do it will be with a second Trump term. He’s almost certainly behind most of the dangerous and grievous errors of the Biden Administration, as explained by John McCain, below.

Why did Republicans apparently suddenly forget about impeachment of Antony Blinken now that they could really launch an investigation in the US House? https://web.archive.org/web/20230118013622/https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-jim-jordan-puts-biden-administration-officials-notice-about Epstein speaking from the grave or Ghislaine Maxwell from prison?

A decade after US Senator John McCain rose to oppose his nomination as Deputy Sec. of State, Tony Blinken is the 71st US Secretary of State – assumed office January 26, 2021; 18th United States Deputy Secretary of State – in office January 9, 2015 – January 20, 2017 (President Obama, Sec. of State Kerry); 26th United States Deputy National Security Advisor, In office January 20, 2013 – January 9, 2015, National Security Advisor to the Vice President of the United States January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2014. “He was a member of the National Security Council (NSC) staff [under Clinton] 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. Blinken supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In 2002, he was appointed staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he served in until 2008. Blinken assisted then-Senator Joe Biden, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in formulating Biden’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, with Blinken characterizing the vote to invade Iraq as “a vote for tough diplomacy”. In the years following the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, Blinken assisted Biden in formulating a proposal in the Senate to establish in Iraq three independent regions divided along ethnic or sectarian lines: a “Shiastan” in the south, a “Sunnistan” in the north, as well as Iraqi Kurdistan. The proposal was overwhelmingly rejected at home, as well as in Iraq, where the prime minister opposed the partition plan…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken

Blinken’s pro-Russian stepfather, Sam Pisar, died in July 2015. By then, however, Blinken would have been a trained robot of Pisar’s views. Whether or not Pisar was directly pulling his strings, he clearly molded Tony Blinken’s views. His half-sister, Leah Pisar, worked in the Clinton White House. According to his bio, Blinken “earned a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1988 and practiced law in New York City and Paris.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken He entered government ca 1993 or 1994. His time practicing law in NYC and Paris overlaps the period when his stepfather was Robert Maxwell’s Paris based lawyer. Robert Maxwell was Ghislaine Maxwell’s father.

Whatever you think or thought about US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, once involved, it became a different matter and John McCain is right. To abandon the country is like having a baby and abandoning it. Once you have a baby you must care for it and not abandon it until it is able to care for itself, and even then you generally retain some ties.
US SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN FULL SPEECH OPPOSING THE NOMINATION OF ANTONY BLINKEN AS DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE ON DECEMBER 16, 2014

“NOMINATION OF ANTONY BLINKEN TO BE DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE
S6892 US Congressional Record (Senate) December 16, 2014

The Senator from Arizona:
Mr. MCCAIN.

Madam President, I rise to discuss my opposition to the pending vote concerning Mr. Anthony “Tony” Blinken, who is not only un-qualified, but, in fact, in my view, one of the worst selections of a very bad lot that this President has chosen. I hope that many of my colleagues will understand that I do not come to the floor to oppose a nomination of the President of the United States often because I believe that elections have consequences.

In this case, this individual has actually been dangerous to America and to the young men and women who are fighting and serving our country. Mr. Blinken has been a foreign policy adviser to Vice President BIDEN since his days in the Senate, but as Robert Gates has noted, Mr. BIDEN has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

At the Special Operations Fund Annual Meeting on May 6, 2013, Mr. Blinken discussed a number of the administration’s achievements, including, one, ending the war in Iraq responsibly; two, setting a clear strategy and date for the withdrawal from Afghanistan; three, decimating Al Qaeda’s senior leadership; and four, repairing our alliances and restoring America’s standing in the world. That is as Orwellian as any statement I have ever heard.

Each and every issue—the conditions are a far cry from the so-called achievements that Mr. Blinken describes. In his capacity as an assistant to the President and Deputy National Secu-rity Adviser, Mr. Blinken has been a functionary and an agent of a U.S. foreign policy that has made the world much less safe today.

Let’s review some major elements of that policy, and in particular, Mr. Blinken’s role in conceptualizing and furthering it.

U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles.

It is, at best, astrategic, and at worst, antistrategic.

It lacks any concept of how to obtain our foreign policy goals.

This has led to countless foreign policy failures, including the continued slaughter of the Syrian people by President Bashar al-Assad; the Russian reset that culminated with President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; the betrayal of our key allies, especially in Central Europe, not to mention Israel; failing to achieve a status-of-forces agreement that would help to maintain Iraqi security and stability; following similarly unwise strategies in Afghanistan—we will see the same movie in Afghanistan that we saw in Iraq if we have a date-driven withdrawal rather than a status-driven, conditions-driven situation; and our feckless position in negotiations with Iran on nuclear weapons that has failed to produce any progress towards an agreement.

I could go into many other failures, such as the vaunted Geneva Convention of 40 nations that was supposed to arrange for the transition of power from Bashar al-Assad and the object failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and what will either be an imminent failure of an Iranian nuclear weapons agreement or an agreement that will be disastrous in the long run.

There are two common sayings by the administration officials, not me, that have defined the President’s approach to foreign policy: “Leading from behind,” and “Don’t do stupid [stuff].”

These approaches have resulted in a failed foreign policy that has made America and Americans less safe. Even President Obama’s most strident supporters have begun to question the President’s foreign policy decisions. In an article entitled “Damage to Obama’s Foreign Policy Has Been Largely Self-Inflicted,” the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, a key supporter of the administration’s foreign policy goals, wrote, “At key turning points—in Egypt and Libya during the Arab Spring, in Syria, in Ukraine, and, yes, in Benghazi—the administration was driven by messaging priorities rather than sound, interests-based policy.” What has Mr. Blinken had to say about all of these issues, my friends? I will give you a few examples.

On Iraq, at the Center for American Progress, on March 16, 2012—I am not making this up—Mr. Blinken said: “What’s beyond debate is that Iraq today is less violent, more democratic and more prosperous—and the United States more deeply engaged there—than at any time in recent history.”

Less violent, more democratic, and more prosperous.

At a White House briefing on March 16, 2012, Mr. Blinken said:
“President Obama and Vice President Biden came to office with this commitment: To end the Iraq war responsibly. Both parts of that sentence are critical. End the war. Responsibly. Under the leadership of President Obama and Vice President Biden, who the President asked to oversee our Iraq policy—and who has made 8 trips to Iraq since being elected— we have followed that path to the letter. “

He went on to say:
“At every significant step along the way, many predicted that the violence would return and Iraq would slide backward toward sectarian war.”

Get this. He said:
“Those predictions proved wrong.”

He went on to say: “Over the past three years, violence has declined and remains at historic lows—even after we completed the drawdown of U.S. forces late last year.”

Remember, he said this in 2012.
“Weekly security incidents fell from an average of 1,600 in 2007–2008 to fewer than 100 today.”

He went on to say:
“And in December, after more than eight wrenching years, President Obama kept his promise to end the war—responsibly. And, while Iran and Iraq will inevitably be more intertwined than we, and many of its neighbors, would like, one thing we learned, over more than eight years in Iraq is that the vast majority of its leaders, including the Prime Minister— “

Who at that time was Prime Minister Maliki—
“—are first and foremost Iraqi nationalists and resistant to outside influence from any-where—starting with Iran.”

Everybody knows that the Iranians are probably the most influential nation in Iraq, certainly under Maliki.

On foreign policy, December 27, 2013, he said:
“If we still had troops in Iraq today, the numbers would have been very small. They would not have been engaged in combat. That would not have been their mission, so the idea that they could or would have done something about the violence that is going on now in Iraq seems, to me, detached from the reality of what the mission would have been had they stayed in any small number.”

Now you don’t have to take my word for it. Take the word of Secretary Gates, Secretary Panetta, Ambassador Crocker, and any knowledgeable person about Iraq, and I will insert their quotes for the record, including Ambassador Crocker, who said: “Of course we could have left a residual force behind.” Both Panetta and Gates said the same thing. At no time was there a public statement by the President of the United States or Mr. Blinken that they wanted to very seriously. In fact, they trumpeted the fact that the last American troop at that time—now we have many troops back—left Iraq and bragged about what a great day it was.

On Fox News with Chris Wallace, September 28, 2014:
Wallace:
“Finally, President Obama spoke to the U.N. this week, but I wanted to ask you about his speech to the U.N., saying—general assembly last year, in which he said we are ending a decade of war. How could the President have been so wrong?”

Blinken:
“The president was exactly right. What we’re doing is totally different than the last decade. We’re not sending hundreds of thousands of American troops back to Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else. We’re not going to be spending trillions of American dollars.”

Wallace:
“Mr. Blinken . . . he said all our troops left Iraq. In fact, he has just sent at least 1,600 troops back into Iraq. He said we’ve dismantled the core of al Qaeda. [And yet,] the Khorasan group which you struck in the first day is an offshoot of the core of al Qaeda, and, in fact, follows the direct orders of the leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri.”

Blinken:
“Chris, they fled. Because we were so successful and effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they fled, because we decimated the core of Al Qaeda. They removed themselves. They went to Syria.”

At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on October 30, 2014:
“The White House “sought to leave a limited residual force” in Iraq, but the Iraqi Government simply refused to agree to legal protections for such troops, said then-Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, who argued the final decision to withdraw all U.S. troops “was not the result of a failure to negotiate.” “It’s something we worked very hard,” he said. “But . . . after a 10-year ‘occupation,’ the Iraqi body politic did not want us to stay in Iraq. That’s what happened” . . . We were focused and acting on ISIL and the threat that it posed more than 1 year before the fall of Mosul, but the problem began to outrun the solution fueled by the conflict in Syria, Iraqi reluctance, and renewed sectarianism in Iraq in advance of elections with politicians on all sides playing to their bases.”

Statements such as these are so divorced from reality, one can only draw one of two conclusions: either that Mr. Blinken is abysmally ignorant or he is simply not telling the truth for whatever motive there is.

By the way, here is what Ryan Crocker said on Iraq:
“As a former ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009, do you think it was a mistake not to push hard for the Status of Forces agreement with Iraq before the U.S. pullout?”

I would remind my colleagues, Ryan Crocker—probably the most respected member of our diplomatic corps alive today—said:
“I do. We could have gotten that agreement if we had been a little more persistent, flexible, and creative. But what really cost us was the political withdrawal. We cut off high-level political engagement with Iraq when we withdrew our troops. There were no senior visits, very few phone calls. Secretary of State John Kerry made one visit prior to this current crisis, mainly to lecture the Iraqis on how bad they were being for facilitating Iranian weapon shipments to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. And we left them to their own devices, knowing that left to their own devices, it would not work out well.”

So we have Mr. Blinken’s comments, and juxtapose them with those of Ambassador Crocker. Here is what Leon Panetta, Democrat, Secretary of Defense said:
“It was clear to me—and many others—that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability then barely holding Iraq together.”

That is from Secretary Leon Panetta’s book. Then he went on to say:
“My fear, as I voiced to the President and others, was that if the country split apart or slid back into the violence that we’d seen in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S. Iraq’s stability was not only in Iraq’s interest but also in ours. I privately and publicly advocated for a residual force that could provide training and security for Iraq’s military.”

Then he went on to say, talking about the Pentagon:
“Those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.“

S6894 December 16, 2014

That is a statement by Leon Panetta. I will move on to Afghanistan. Mr. Blinken said:
“We have been very clear. We have been consistent. The war will be concluded by the end of 2014. We have a timetable, and that timetable will not change.”

This is why I am so worried about him being in the position he is in, because if they stick to that timetable, I am telling my colleagues that we will see the replay of Iraq all over again. We must leave a stabilizing force behind of a few thousand troops or we will see again what we saw in Iraq.

So let’s move on to Syria. In an MSNBC interview in 2014, responding to a question about President Obama’s comment in August 2014 calling it “a fantasy” to say that arming the Syrian rebels 3 years ago would have helped the situation, Blinken: “Fantasy was the notion that had we started to work with these guys—“

Talking about the Free Syrian Army—

“six months earlier, that that somehow would have turned the tide.”

Blinken:
“Candy, you know, Assad has been a magnet for the very extremism we’re now fighting against. And it is inconceivable to think of Syria being stable with Assad as its leader. He has forfeited his legitimacy. ISIL right now is the wolf at the door. But the answer to both Assad and ISIL actually is the moderate opposition. They need to be built up, so that they can be a counterweight to Assad. In the near term, they need to be built up so they can work on the ground to help deal with ISIL.”

Candy Crowley:
“So ISIS is the wolf at the door now, but Assad, as far as the U.S. is concerned, is the next wolf at the door?”

Mr. Blinken:
“We have been very clear that there needs to be a transition in Syria, that as long as Assad is there, it’s very hard to see Syria being stable, and he will continue to be a magnet for the extremists we are fighting.”

Crowley:
“But a transition is not the same as, we will actively help you bring this guy down”.

Blinken:
“The best way to deal with Assad is to transition him out so that the moderate opposition can fill the vacuum. That’s what we have been working on. The more you build them up, the more you make them a counterweight, the more possible that becomes.”

Let me just remind my colleagues of what has happened. There is a guy named Caesar who about a year and a half ago smuggled out thousands of pictures. These pictures are the most gripping and horrifying I have ever seen. They were actual pictures which have been authenticated of the atrocities committed by Bashar Assad. They are wrenching, they are heartbreaking, and they are terrible. Now, 200,000 people have been butchered in Syria, and 3.5 million are refugees; 150,000 are still in Bashar Assad’s prison experiencing atrocities such as this. These are little children here. These are little children. They have been massacred by Bashar Assad.

What have we done? What have we done in response to this? First of all, amazingly, these photographs have been authenticated by this guy Caesar. He did testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It didn’t seem to rise to the interest of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee or the American people or this administration. I was at a refugee camp in Jordan where at that time there were, I think, 75,000 refugees. I was being taken around by a young woman who was a schoolteacher, and she said: Senator MCCAIN, do you see all of these children? I said: Yes. She said: Those children believe that you have abandoned them, Senator MCCAIN, that you Americans have abandoned them, and when they grow up, they are going to take revenge on you.

So here we are, this incredible slaughter, massacre, torture taking place, and what is this administration doing? It is trying to make a deal with the Iranians and leaving Bashar Assad to wreak havoc on the Syrian people who are still able to fight, butchering them with barrel bombs. Most of my colleagues know what a barrel bomb is. It is a huge cylinder, and it is packed with explosives and nuts and bolts and pieces of shrapnell. Bashar Assad, unimpeded, flies his helicopters and they drop these barrel bombs. Then, when they capture these people, this is what is done to them. Today it is clear that what is happening is that we are attacking ISIS in Syria. We are not attacking Bashar Assad, this butcher. In fact, Bashar Assad has intensified his attacks on the Free Syrian Army—intensified them. Not surprisingly, the morale of the Free Syrian Army is very low. So General Allen and others have recently proposed a no-fly zone or an air-craft exclusion zone, an idea we have been arguing for, for about 3 years. This President still refuses to do it. It is heartbreaking.

It is heartbreaking and it is tragic and it will go down in American history as one of the most shameful chapters because of our failure and the President’s personal decision not to arm the Free Syrian Army when all of his key national security advisers—his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton; the head of the CIA, General Petraeus; and Secretary of Defense, Secretary Panetta all strongly recommended providing arms to the Free Syrian Army.

I will move on to Ukraine.

Mr. Blinken:
“What Putin has seen is the President mobilizing the international community both in support of Ukraine and to isolate Russia for its actions in Ukraine, and Russia is paying a clear cost for that. The notion that this is somehow the result of Syria makes very little sense to me. . . . That’s because this is not about what we do or say in the first instance, it’s about Russia and its perceived interests.”

What Mr. Blinken doesn’t understand is that weakness in one place translates throughout the world.

When I tell my colleagues, when I tell my fellow citizens that we will not supply the Ukraine people with defensive weapons, they don’t believe me. They have watched the country dismembered. They have watched Crimea go. They have watched the shoot-down on an airliner that nobody talks about anymore, and they continue to create unrest and killing in eastern Ukraine, and we will not even supply the Ukrainians with weapons with which to defend themselves. I see that I am nearly out of time.

I would like to say I wish Mr. Blinken’s words were matched by his deeds. At the Holocaust Museum, October 6, 2014, he said:
“A new notion is gaining currency: the “Responsibility to Protect.” It holds that states have responsibilities as well as interests—especially the responsibility to shield their own populations from the depraved and murderous. This approach is bold. It is important. And the United States welcomes it and has included it as a core element of our National Security Strategy, along with our commitment to prevent genocide and hold those who organize atrocities accountable.”

No one can look at those pictures, the thousands, and believe that we have held Bashar Assad responsible.

He ended up by saying:
“Endorsing the responsibility to protect is one thing; acting on it is another. All of us in the international community will have to muster the political will to act—diplomatically, economically, or, in extreme cases, militarily—when governments prove unable or unwilling to prevent the slaughter of their citizens.”

That is a remarkable statement from an individual whose actions have clearly contradicted that at every turn in literally every corner of the Earth.

I know we will probably lose the vote, but I believe history will hold this administration accountable.

History will hold those individuals who are part of this administration, who allowed these slaughters to go on—a dismemberment of a country called Ukraine, the first time a European country has been departitioned since World War II; the needless slaughter of thousands and thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children, and the thousands and thousands of Syrian children.

The list goes on and on. Now we are going to promote this individual to replace probably the finest diplomat I have known, Secretary Burns.

Not only is Mr. Blinken unqualified, but he is, I believe, a threat to the traditional interests and values that embody the United States of America.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. MENENDEZ. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I come to the floor in favor of the confirmation of Tony Blinken, who is no stranger to this institution and no stranger to the most significant national security issues this Nation has faced in a generation. As the former staff director of the Foreign Relations Committee and a close confidant of then-Chairman Biden and now a member of the President’s national security team, he has earned a reputation as hard-working, studious, and keenly analytical. He comes from a family of diplomats and has lived his life in and around the Foreign Service….” https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-160/issue-155/senate-section https://www.congress.gov/113/crec/2014/12/16/CREC-2014-12-16-pt1-PgS6886.pdf

https://www.c-span.org/video/?323344-6/senator-john-mccain-tony-blinken-nomination

Menendez has been indicted recently for bribery-acting as an agent on behalf of at least one foreign country (Egypt). In a superceding indictment, “Sen. Menendez charged with receiving gifts from Qatar in new allegations in corruption scheme” By Kara Scannell, CNN Updated 10:04 AM EST, Wed January 3, 2024 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/02/politics/bob-menendez-superseding-indictment-qatar/index.html

Perhaps Menendez refers to Blinken’s father, who served as Ambassador to Hungary. However, he fails to note that the stepfather who raised Blinken from age 9 years was Sam Pisar, who appears to have been one of the foremost advocates of doing business with the USSR and held Soviet citizenship (for an unknown period of time). Antony Blinken’s mother, Judith Pisar and his late stepfather, Samuel Pisar, became members of the Russian Academy of Arts in 2012 (Putin was President).

Antony Blinken’s mother, became a member of the Russian Academy of Arts in late 2012, when Putin had just been re-elected President, and is still listed as a member: Judith Pisar, October 23, 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20240430203745/https://eng.rah.ru/the_academy_today/the_members_of_the_academie/member.php?ID=54144
At the time, Blinken was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. His stepfather was also a member of the Russian Academy of Arts, probably from 2012, as well.

“From 2009 to 2013, Blinken 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 the nuclear program of Iran.[3][4] Blinken was sworn in as deputy national security advisor, succeeding Denis McDonough, on January 20, 2013.[32]
On November 7, 2014, President Obama announced that he would nominate Blinken for the Deputy Secretary post, replacing the retiring William J. Burns.[33] On December 16, 2014, Blinken was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of State by the Senate by a vote of 55 to 38.[34]
Of Obama’s 2011 decision to kill Osama bin Laden, Blinken said “I’ve never seen a more courageous decision made by a leader.”[35] A 2013 profile described him as “one of the government’s key players in drafting Syria policy”,[5] for which he served as a public face.[36] Blinken was influential in formulating the Obama administration’s response to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.[37][38]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken

Pisar was the lawyer for and a confidante to Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, and the last to speak to him before he allegedly fell from his yacht.

According to Blinken’s bios, he worked as a lawyer in New York and Paris between when he graduated from law school (1988) and started to work in government (1993 or 94). In this period his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was a Paris-New York lawyer working for Robert Maxwell. Surely Blinken worked with his stepfather. So, did he work for Robert Maxwell? Who did Antony Blinken work for in Paris and New York? Why is Blinken apparently untouchable?

According to Robert Maxwell’s widow, Ghislaine Maxwell’s mother, she introduced him to Pisar in 1988: “A mind of my own : my life with Robert Maxwell” by Maxwell, Elisabeth Publication date 1994 https://archive.org/details/mindofmyownmylif0000maxw/page/527/mode/1up?q=Pisar It is well-documented that Pisar was Maxwell’s lawyer when he died in November 1991. However, it’s difficult to believe that they didn’t know each other prior to 1988.

Furthermore, one French news sources (Le Parisien) has said that Pisar worked for Jeff Epstein, when Epstein was in France. Samuel Pisar’s last known law office address was on Avenue Foch in Paris. Epstein’s Paris residence was on the same street.

“Coexistence and Commerce: Guidelines for Transactions between East and West”. By Samuel Pisar. London:  Allen Lane The Penguin Press.  1971. 558 pp https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/48/2/290/2681020