Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for
presidents
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
. Abrams is considered to be a
neoconservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...
. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021 and as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021.
His involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration led to his conviction in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully withholding information from
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
. He was later pardoned by president George H. W. Bush.
During George W. Bush's first term, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs. At the start of Bush's second term, Abrams was promoted to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy, in charge of promoting Bush's strategy of "advancing democracy abroad." In the Bush administration, Abrams was a supporter of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
.
On January 25, 2019, he was appointed as Special Representative for Venezuela. On September 1, 2020, he was further appointed to concurrently serve as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran.
Background
Elliott Abrams was born into a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in New York in 1948. His father was an immigration lawyer. Abrams attended the Little Red School House in New York City, a private high school whose students at the time included the children of many of the city's notable left-wing activists and artists. Abrams' parents were Democrats. His first cousin is attorney
Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams (born in July 9, 1936) is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law and has argued in 13 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Abrams represented ''The New York Times'' ...
.
Abrams received his
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), stood up in March 1941 as the "Truman Committee," is the oldest subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (formerly the Committee on Governme ...
Abrams first came to national prominence when he served as Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the early 1980s and later as Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs. His nomination to Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs was unanimously approved by the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid p ...
on November 17, 1981. Abrams was Reagan's second choice for the position; his first nominee, Ernest W. Lefever, had been rejected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 5, 1981.
During his time in the post, Abrams clashed regularly with church groups and human rights organizations, including
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
. According to an article in ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', in a 1984 appearance on the program '' Nightline'', Abrams clashed with
Aryeh Neier
Aryeh Neier (born April 22, 1937) is an American human rights activist who co-founded Human Rights Watch, served as the president of George Soros's Open Society Institute philanthropy network from 1993 to 2012, had been National Director of th ...
, the executive director of Human Rights Watch and with the leader of Amnesty International, over the Reagan administration's foreign policies. They accused him of covering up atrocities committed by the military forces of U.S.-backed governments, including those in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and the rebel Contras in
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
. Abrams accused critics of the Reagan administration's foreign policy towards Latin America of being "Un-American" and "unpatriotic."
In an October 1981 memo, weeks prior to his confirmation in the Senate, Abrams asserted, "human rights is at the core of our foreign policy." Critics say that Abrams and the Reagan administration misappropriated the term human rights, with Tamar Jacoby writing in 1986, "in a period that more or less coincided with Abrams' tenure as assistant secretary of state for human rights, the White House endeavored to appropriate the banner of human rights for itself to use it in battle not only against communist regimes but also, in a more defensive way, against domestic opponents of its human rights policy." The Lawyers Committee, Americas Watch and Helsinki Watch wrote a report in 1985, charging that Abrams had "developed and articulated a human rights ideology which complements and justifies Administration policies" and undermined the purpose of the human rights bureau in the State Department.
According to American University political scientist William M. LeoGrande,
Communist governments were the worst human rights violators in the world, Abrams believed, so virtually anything done to prevent Communists from coming to power (or to overthrow them) was justifiable on human rights grounds. This theory fit neatly into the Cold War presumptions that framed Reagan's foreign policy and allowed the administration to rationalize supporting murderous regimes so long as they were anti-Communists. In practice, it was little different from Henry Kissinger's realpolitik that discounted human rights issues entirely.
Abrams was generally considered a skilled and influential bureaucrat in the human rights bureau.
Guatemala
As Assistant Secretary of State, Abrams advocated for aid to Guatemala under then dictator
Efraín Ríos Montt
José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods i ...
. Ríos Montt came to power via a coup in 1982, overcoming the forces of General
Fernando Romeo Lucas García
General Fernando Romeo Lucas García (4 July 1924 – † 27 May 2006) was the 37th President of Guatemala from July 1, 1978 to March 23, 1982. He was elected as Institutional Democratic Party candidate (with the support of the Revolutionary P ...
. Thirty years later, Ríos Montt was found guilty of overseeing a campaign of mass murder and torture of indigenous people, genocide, in Guatemala. Ríos Montt, who claimed he had no operational control of the forces involved, was convicted of genocide against the
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
Abrams frequently defended the human rights record of the El Salvador government and attacked human rights groups as communist sympathizers when they criticized the El Salvador government. In early 1982, when reports of the El Mozote massacre of hundreds of civilians by the military in El Salvador began appearing in U.S. media, Abrams told a Senate committee that the reported number of deaths at El Mozote "was not credible," reasoning that the reported number of deaths was greater than the likely population, and that there were survivors. He said that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas." The massacre had come at a time when the Reagan administration was attempting to bolster the
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
image of the Salvadoran military. Abrams implied that reports of a massacre were simply FMLN propaganda and denounced U.S. investigative reports of the massacre as misleading. In March 1993, the Salvadoran Truth Commission reported that over 500 civilians were "deliberately and systematically" executed in El Mozote in December 1981 by forces affiliated with the Salvadoran government.
Also in 1993, documentation emerged suggesting that some Reagan administration officials could have known about El Mozote and other human rights violations from the beginning. However, in July 1993, an investigation commissioned by Clinton Secretary of State Warren Christopher into the State Department's "activities and conduct" with regard to human rights in El Salvador during the Reagan years found that, despite U.S. funding of the Salvadoran government that committed the massacre at El Mozote, individual U.S. personnel "performed creditably and occasionally with personal bravery in advancing human rights in El Salvador." Abrams said in 2001 that Washington's policy in El Salvador was a "fabulous achievement." In 2019 he said that the "fabulous achievement" was that El Salvador "has been a
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
". In a 1998 interview, Abrams remarked, "While it was important to us to promote the cause of human rights in Central America it was more important to prevent a communist takeover in El Salvador."
Nicaragua
When Congress shut down funding for the Contras' efforts to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government with the 1982 Boland Amendment, members of the Reagan administration began looking for other avenues for funding the group. Congress opened a couple of such avenues when it modified the Boland Amendment for fiscal year 1986 by approving $27 million in direct aid to the Contras and allowing the administration to legally solicit funds for the Contras from foreign governments. Neither the direct aid, nor any foreign contributions, could be used to purchase weapons.
Guided by the new provisions of the modified Boland Amendment, Abrams flew to
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
in August 1986 and met secretly with Bruneian defense minister General Ibnu to solicit a $10-million contribution from the Sultan of Brunei. Ultimately, the Contras never received this money because a clerical error in
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.
A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Secu ...
's office (a mistyped account number) sent the Bruneian money to the wrong Swiss bank account.
Iran-Contra affair and convictions
In October 1986, a plane flown by Eugene Hasenfus, carrying military equipment intended for the Contras, a right-wing rebel group fighting against the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, was shot down over Nicaragua. The Reagan administration publicly denied that Hasenfus sought to arm the Contras as part of a US government mission. However, the State Department was centrally involved in the covert plan to fund the Contras, which violated congressional legislation. In congressional testimony in October 1986, Abrams repeatedly and categorically denied that the US government was involved in arming the Contras. However, at the time, Abrams knew that " North">liverNorth was encouraging, coordinating and directing the activities of the contra-resupply operation and that North was in contact with the private citizens who were behind the lethal resupply fights."
During investigation of the Iran-Contra Affair,
Lawrence Walsh
Lawrence Edward Walsh (January 8, 1912 – March 19, 2014) was an American lawyer, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and United States Deputy Attorney General who was appoi ...
, the Independent Counsel tasked with investigating the case, prepared multiple felony counts against Abrams. In 1991, Abrams admitted that he knew more than he acknowledged in his congressional testimony, cooperated with Walsh and entered into a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. For failing to cooperate, he would have faced felony charges of perjury over his congressional testimony. He was sentenced to a $50 fine, probation for two years, and 100 hours of community service. Abrams was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush in December 1992.
In 1997, Abrams was publicly sanctioned by the District of Columbia Bar for giving false testimony to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. Although several of the court's judges recommended disbarment, the court ultimately declined to disbar Abrams over questions related to the effect of Abrams' Presidential pardon for his prior criminal conduct.
Bush administration
President George W. Bush appointed Abrams to the post of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations at the National Security Council on June 25, 2001. Abrams was appointed special assistant to the President and the NSC's senior director for Near East and North African Affairs on December 2, 2002.
Human rights groups and commentators expressed disquiet over his
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
appointment owing to his disreputable conduct and conviction in the Iran–Contra affair investigation and his role in overseeing the Reagan administration's foreign policy in Latin America.
''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' wrote that Abrams had advance knowledge of, and "gave a nod to," the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 against Hugo Chávez.
'' The Intercept'' has reported that Abrams had a key role in disrupting a peace plan proposed by Iran, right after the U.S. invasion to Iraq in 2003. Abrams' office received this plan by
fax
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
. They should have passed the plan to Condoleezza Rice. But she never saw it. Later, Abrams's spokesperson got asked about the plan and he said “he had no memory of any such fax.”
On February 2, 2005, Bush appointed Abrams deputy national security adviser for Global Democracy Strategy, where he served until the end of his administration on January 20, 2009. Abrams accompanied Condoleezza Rice as a primary adviser on her visits to the Middle East in late July 2006 in the course of discussions relating to the
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War ( ar, حرب تموز, ''Ḥarb Tammūz'') and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War ( he, מלחמת לבנון השנייה, ''Milhemet Le ...
.
Post-Bush administration
On May 16, 2016, Abrams wrote a historical piece in ''The'' ''Weekly Standard'' predicting that Donald Trump would "fail colossally" in the 2016 election to which he drew parallels with the 1972 election.
On December 23, 2016, Abrams, a strong supporter of Israel, criticized
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
for "undermining Israel's elected government, prevent its action against Iran's nuclear weapons program, and create as much daylight as possible between the United States and Israel." Abrams condemned Obama's decision not to block a UN resolution criticizing Israeli settlement building in the occupied
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
.
In February 2017, it was reported that Abrams was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's first pick for Deputy Secretary of State, but that Tillerson was overruled by Trump. Trump aides were supportive of Abrams, but Trump opposed him because of Abrams' opposition during the campaign.
Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Additionally, he holds positions on the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG), Center for Security Policy & National Secretary Advisory Council, Committee for a Free Lebanon, and the
Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservativeU.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and maintained a CFR blog called "Pressure Points" about U.S. foreign policy and human rights.
He was on the faculty of Georgetown University.
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
. This came two days after American recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president, thus advocating for
regime change
Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may ...
in Venezuela.
This was questioned by some opposition members in Congress. For example, in February 2019, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota questioned whether Abrams was the correct choice because he had been convicted for lying to Congress in the past about his role in the Iran-Contra affair, and his support for previous instances of anti-leftist regime change in Central and South America, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.
Upon the resignation of Brian Hook, Abrams was selected to succeed him as United States Special Representative for Iran. Both positions were merged into the United States Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela as of September 1, 2020.
Political views
Abrams is
neoconservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
. Abrams is also pro-Israel.
Abrams originally opposed Trump's candidacy for president, writing an op-ed in '' The Weekly Standard'' titled "When You Can't Stand Your Candidate." Abrams supported
Ted Cruz
Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...
and Marco Rubio during the Republican primaries for the 2016 presidential election. After his time working in the Trump administration, he confirmed that he has continued to believe the Donald Trump was unfit to be president. He agreed with Senator Mitch McConnell's assessment that Trump provoked the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Personal life
Through Senator Moynihan, Abrams was introduced to Rachel Decter, the stepdaughter of Moynihan's friend Norman Podhoretz, editor of ''
Commentary
Commentary or commentaries may refer to:
Publications
* ''Commentary'' (magazine), a U.S. public affairs journal, founded in 1945 and formerly published by the American Jewish Committee
* Caesar's Commentaries (disambiguation), a number of works ...
''. They were married from 1980 until her death in June 2013. He has two sons, Jacob and Joseph, and one daughter, Sarah.Elliott Abrams – ''Undue Process'', p. 80.