Susan Rice, ‘Deep State’ Running Mate

Susan Rice is reportedly on the short list to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate. It would be an odd choice: Rice has never held elective office, and has little popular appeal.

Her record of foreign policy is one of astonishing failure, from the Rwandan genocide to the Benghazi terror attack.

Her main advantage is that she has been loyal to the Democratic Party establishment and the Deep State. Through Rice, the Clintons and Obamas could wield power in a Biden administration.

Among the contenders, Rice has the most extensive record of federal government service, having been UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor (NSA) for President Barack Obama, and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under President Bill Clinton.

She also has what HuffPost calls a “mysterious gap in her resume,” working as a private consultant for foreign governments from 2001 to 2002. Rice has not yet revealed the names of her clients during that time.

Rice is also rich — very rich. When she joined the Obama administration in 2009, she was the wealthiest member of the executive branch, according to the Wall Street Journal. She was even wealthier than Hillary Clinton. In March 2018, Rice was named to the board of directors of Netflix, making her one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, though she had little experience in the entertainment industry. Two months later, the Obamas signed a deal with Netflix to produce content for the popular streaming network over several years.

Since becoming a Netflix director, Rice acquired more than 5,200 stock options, according to the Journal. She recently exercised a quarter of those options, selling part of her stake as Biden vetted her to be his running mate. “At her sale price of $508.68 per share, Ms. Rice netted about $305,000 after accounting for the various strike prices associated with the options awarded to her as compensation,” the Journal reported.

Rice has another distinguishing quality: she is an accomplished liar.

Her most infamous lie came in September 2012, when she blamed a hitherto obscure YouTube video for Benghazi, though the Obama administration already knew it had been a planned terror operation. In March 2017, she also told PBS “I know nothing” about the surveillance of Trump campaign officials; days later, she had to admit that she herself asked for names to be “unmasked” in surveillance reports.

The lies go back to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, when Rice denied that her candidate had promised to meet with enemy leaders “without preconditions.” In fact, Obama had done so, proudly and publicly, on the debate stage.

Last year, according to documents released by Judicial Watch, Rice said in writing and under oath that she does not recall “attending any meetings focused on the events in Benghazi” in the days after the 2012 attack, which strains credulity.

She also lied to the public about U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, and about Syria giving up its chemical weapons.

But Rice’s history of obfuscation is eclipsed by her record of incompetence. She is blamed for the Clinton administration’s failure to intervene in the Rwandan genocide. As Breitbart News recalled in 2012:

In a quote for a 2002 book written by Samantha Power, Ms. Rice stated, in her attempted defense of the Clinton Administration’s inaction in response to the genocide that was taking place in the tiny African Nation of Rwanda in 1994, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?” It was later revealed that President Clinton, along with Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, Warren Christopher, and Ms. Rice were all part of a coordinated effort not only to block U.N. action to stop the genocide, but to work behind the scenes to craft public opinion on the issue by removing words such as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” from official State Department and CIA memos.

Rice also defended the Clinton administration’s initial refusal to provide cheaper HIV/Aids drugs to Africa, and opposed efforts to work with the Sudanese government when it was prepared to hand over a terrorist named Osama bin Laden.

As UN Ambassador, Rice compounded that record of failure. Frequently absent from meetings, Rice also attacked Israel but tolerated Iran. She opposed scrutiny of human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but enthusiastically supported the UN Human Rights Council, a discredited club of dictators obsessively focused on condemning Israel. Her office enthusiastically complained to the council about supposed abuses in the U.S., such as Arizona’s immigration law.

Rice was considered a contender for Secretary of State in Obama’s second term, but the White House, realizing that she would not survive Senate confirmation, gave her the NSA post instead, where she helped push the Iran nuclear deal.

On her way out of office, Rice joined the effort to unmask Trump aides. Though she was not among those who asked to unmask the name of incoming NSA Michael Flynn, she was present at a January 5, 2017 meeting in the Oval Office at which the investigation into Flynn was discussed. Rice later emailed a memorandum to herself about that meeting in which she insisted several times that President Obama had insisted everything be done “by the book” — which it was not.

More recently, Rice has attempted to climb onto the Black Lives Matter bandwagon, calling the Trump administration “racist to the core” and supporting what she described as “re-imagining the role of the police.”

As a running mate, Rice would be a steady hand — and a way for the Deep State to reassert its control of America.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.