Jake Sullivan

Jake Sullivan
Sullivan (left) with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, November 2012
Personal details
Born	(1976-11-28) November 28, 1976
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Margaret Goodlander
Alma mater	Yale University Magdalen College, Oxford

Jacob Jeremiah "Jake" Sullivan (born November 28, 1976) is an American policymaker and the top foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2016 election campaign. He is widely rumored to be a front-runner for the position of U.S. National Security Advisor under a potential Hillary Clinton administration, should she be elected president in 2016.

Sullivan is also a senior advisor to the U.S. government for the Iran nuclear negotiations and a visiting professor at Yale Law School.

Prior to teaching at Yale, Sullivan was Deputy Assistant to the U.S. President Barack Obama and National Security Advisor to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. He also served as the Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, and as Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was deputy policy director on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential primary campaign, and a member of the debate preparation team for Barack Obama's general election campaign.

Education

Sullivan attended Southwest High School, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was a debate champion, president of the student council, and voted "most likely to succeed" in his class.

Sullivan attended Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1998; and a Juris Doctor degree in law in 2003. At Yale, he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Daily News, was a member of the debate team, and earned a Truman Scholarship in his junior year. He also worked for Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

In 2000 he graduatedwith an MPhil having received a Rhodes Scholarship to study international relations and became a managing editor of the Oxford International Review. In London, he worked under the Council on Foreign Relations's Les Gelb and was a reporter-researcher for Time Atlantic.

Career

After his studies, Sullivan clerked for Second Circuit Court of Appeals judge Guido Calabresi and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Stephen Breyer.

After the clerkships, Sullivan practiced at Faegre & Benson and taught law as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. Later he was chief counsel to U.S. Senator from Minnesota Amy Klobuchar.

In 2008, Sullivan was originally an advisor to Hillary Clinton during the primary cycle, and then to Barack Obama during the general election campaign. As a skilled debater – he finished second at the 2000 World Championships in the individual speaker category – he prepared Clinton and Obama for debates. When Clinton became U.S. Secretary of State, Sullivan joined as her deputy chief of staff and Director of Policy Planning. He became Vice President Biden's top security aide in February 2013 after Clinton stepped down as U.S. Secretary of State. In those posts, he played a role in shaping U.S. foreign policy towards Libya, Syria, and Myanmar.

On June 20, 2014, The New York Times reported that Sullivan was leaving the administration in August 2014 to teach at Yale Law School.

Iran nuclear negotiations

Main article: Comprehensive agreement on Iranian nuclear program

In November 2013, the Associated Press reported that officials in the Obama administration had been in secret contact with Iranian officials throughout 2013 about the feasibility of an agreement over the Iranian nuclear program. The report stated that American officials, including U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Senior White House Iran Advisor Puneet Talwar, and Sullivan, had secretly met with their Iranian counterparts at least five times face-to-face in Oman. Those efforts paved the way for the Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, known officially as the Joint Plan of Action, signed by Iran and the P5+1 countries in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 24, 2013.

Since then, Sullivan has regularly attended bilateral consultations with Iran in Geneva as a member of the U.S. delegation on the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Personal life

Sullivan married Margaret Maggie Goodlander, a former speechwriter to Senator Joe Lieberman and senior policy advisor to Senator John McCain, in June 2015.

See also

• List of alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 2)
• List of people from Minneapolis
• List of Rhodes Scholars
• List of Yale University people

External links

• 2013 Commencement address to the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs
• "40 Under 40" profile by Time, 2008

• http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/clinton-names-top-three-wonks-for-campaign-116975.html