Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan (born November 28, 1976) is an American attorney who served as the U.S. national security advisor from 2021 to 2025 under President Joe Biden.
Sullivan previously served as Director of Policy to President Barack Obama, National Security Advisor to then-Vice President Biden and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Hillary Clinton at the U.S. Department of State. Sullivan also served as senior advisor to the U.S. federal government at the Iran nuclear negotiations and senior policy advisor to Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, as well as visiting professor at Yale Law School.
On November 23, 2020, President-elect Biden announced that Sullivan would be appointed the National Security Advisor. He took office on January 20, 2021.
Early life and education Sullivan was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a family of Irish descentElise Labott, "The Sullivan Model", Foreign Policy, April 9, 2021. Retrieved February 21, 2023. and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father worked for the Star Tribune and was a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and his mother was a high school guidance counselor. Sullivan attended Southwest High School in Minneapolis, where he graduated in 1994. He was a Coca-Cola Scholar, debate champion, president of the student council, and voted "most likely to succeed" in his class.
Educated in the United States and United Kingdom, Sullivan first attended Yale University, where he majored in international studies and political science and was awarded the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize. He was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa his senior year and graduated summa cum laude with distinction in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts. Sullivan won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied international relations. He was also awarded a Marshall Scholarship, which he declined in favor of the Rhodes. While at Oxford, Sullivan served as a managing editor of the Oxford International Review. He graduated with a Master of Philosophy. He graduated with a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2003. He is a member, and former board member, of the Truman National Security Project.
At Yale, he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, the Yale Law & Policy Review, and the Yale Daily News. He interned at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a member of the Yale Debate Association, 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.
Early career After graduating from law school, Sullivan clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Sullivan returned to his hometown of Minneapolis to practice law at Faegre & Benson and taught law as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. After Faegre & Benson, Sullivan worked as chief counsel to Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, who connected him to Hillary Clinton.
Obama administration
In 2008, Sullivan was an advisor to Hillary Clinton during the primary cycle and then to Barack Obama during the general election campaign. He prepared Clinton and Obama for debates. When Clinton became secretary of state, Sullivan was named her deputy chief of staff and Director of Policy Planning, and traveled with her to 112 countries. In 2012, Sullivan approvingly wrote that Al-Qaeda "was on our side in Syria" to Clinton. Clinton later joked that Sullivan was a potential future president of the United States.
Sullivan worked in the Obama administration as deputy assistant to the president and National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. He became Biden's top security aide in February 2013 after Clinton stepped down as 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. , he was a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Iran nuclear negotiations
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 Deputy Secretary of State William J. 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.
2016 Clinton presidential campaign Sullivan was Hillary Clinton's chief foreign policy adviser during her 2016 bid for the presidency.
He was reported to be the only senior staffer who repeatedly suggested that Clinton should spend more time in Midwestern swing states during the election campaign. Clinton's failure to win those states was a key factor in her defeat. Sullivan was prominent in many of the Podesta emails released during the 2016 US presidential election, including Sullivan questioning if Democratic primary candidate Martin O'Malley's 100% clean energy by 2050 plan was "realistic". After the election, Sullivan confessed to feeling "a keen sense of responsibility" for Clinton's defeat. On March 24, 2022, former president Donald Trump sued numerous people including Clinton and Sullivan alleging a conspiracy by the Clinton campaign to invent the Russian collusion scandal. The suit was dismissed on September 8, 2022, and on January 19, 2023, a federal judge imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba, calling the suit "completely frivolous".
Macro Advisory Partners and Microsoft After his work with the Clinton campaign, Sullivan joined Macro Advisory Partners, a risk advisory company, in January 2017; it paid him at least $135,000. While at the London-based advisory firm, he advised a number of companies including Uber, Mastercard, Lego, as well as large investment groups such as Bank of America, Aviva, Standard Life Aberdeen, and Standard Chartered. Following the Clinton campaign, he joined the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire as a member of the faculty and senior fellow.
Between 2017 and May 2020, Sullivan served on an advisory council for Microsoft; in 2020, he was paid $45,000 for this work. Given his role in crafting U.S. cyber security policy in the Biden administration, including overseeing the government's response to the January 2021 cyberattack on Microsoft, concerns have been raised about potential conflicts of interest.
National security advisor
2021 On November 22, 2020, Sullivan was announced as Joe Biden's National Security Advisor. Upon his appointment, Sullivan stated that the early priorities of Biden's National Security Council (NSC) are the COVID-19 pandemic, "restructuring the NSC to make public health a permanent national security priority", and China relations. He also emphasized that the Biden administration aimed to repair American relations with allies that he regarded as being damaged during the Trump administration.
In September 2021 The Guardian opined that one of Sullivan's themes in the job is connecting US actions on the world stage to the lives and welfare of ordinary Americans, with the mantra of "a foreign policy for the middle class".
After the surrender of Kabul to the Taliban, Sullivan said that the collapse of the government of Afghanistan occurred because at the "end of the day, despite the fact we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to give the best equipment, the best training and the best capacity to the Afghan national security forces, we could not give them the will and they ultimately decided that they would not fight for Kabul and they would not fight for the country." However, Brett Bruen, director of global engagement in the Obama White House, called for Sullivan's dismissal over his role in the affair.
On September 28, 2021, Sullivan met in Saudi Arabia with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the 2021 global energy crisis and Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. They also discussed the potential deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
On October 6, 2021, a high level meeting between Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat, CCP Politburo member & director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Yang Jiechi, in Zürich, Switzerland focused on a number of contentious aspects of Chinese-American relations, including the existence of Taiwan, trade disputes, the COVID-19 origin theories, as well as civic freedoms in Hong Kong. Despite continued differences between the two nations on these issues, both sides agreed to continue their cooperation "in the spirit of fair and peaceful competition"."Treffen in Zürich: Die Gespräche sind beendet, Sullivan äussert Bedenken gegenüber Chinas Vorgehen" Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
On October 25, 2021, Sullivan was briefed by Pentagon officials on the full range of military options to ensure that Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon.
On November 7, 2021, Sullivan stated that the US does not pursue system change in China any longer, marking a clear break from the China policy pursued by previous US administrations. Sullivan said that the US is not seeking a new Cold War with China, but is looking for a system of peaceful coexistence.
On December 7, 2021, Sullivan warned that Russia's Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project will end in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
2022
On January 14, 2022, Sullivan accused Russia of sending saboteurs into Ukraine to stage "a false-flag operation" that would create a pretext for Russia to invade Ukraine. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the U.S. claim as "total disinformation."
On January 23, 2022, the Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees (USDH) and ordered the departure of eligible family members (EFM) from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action. The Department of State announced that U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine, and those in Ukraine should depart immediately using commercial or other privately available transportation options.
On February 11, 2022, the State Department issued a heightened threat Level 4 Do Not Travel Advisory in Ukraine.
Jake Sullivan warned of a high likelihood of escalation in the conflict as diplomatic options were failing in United Nations' Security Council. Sullivan suggested there is high likelihood of Russian invasion of Ukraine before the end of the 2022 Winter Olympics and there will be "no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation" once an invasion commences. He said that "Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action."
On February 24 the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
On March 13, 2022, Sullivan warned of a full-fledged NATO response if Russia attacks any part of NATO territory. He reportedly advised Zelenskyy not to try to retake Crimea or attack the Crimean Bridge, fearing that Russia might respond with a nuclear strike. Sullivan also reportedly imposed restrictions to prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied weapons for retaliatory attacks on Russian territory.