Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken in the Oval Office on June 22, 2023. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Avril Haines, the former Director of National Intelligence who ordered me and thousands of other intelligence officials to overlook concerns about war crimes so we would continue feeding intelligence to the Israeli military, has had the grace to largely avoid the public eye since leaving office, which is what you or I might do if we felt responsible for one of the worst crimes in modern history.
Not so for the small inner circle of Biden advisers who gave Haines her orders. The men behind Joe Biden’s genocidal “bear hug” policy of unconditional US support for the Israeli government are now popping up everywhere from Stephen Colbert to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to their own podcasts, presenting themselves as responsible experts critiquing Trump’s chaotic foreign policy. The Biden guys, far from seeking anonymity or amnesty, expect to be rewarded for their performance in Gaza with continued influence in the Democratic Party and powerful roles in the next administration. That’s why, even knee-deep in multiple Trump crises, we can’t afford to ignore the ambitions of Biden’s top advisers. Here’s how they’re continuing to influence Democrats’ foreign policy as if Gaza never happened:
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who skirted the law, lied to Congress, and cooked the books on human rights reporting to keep arming the military carrying out the Gaza genocide, is now on the board of directors of the influential Democratic think tank Center for American Progress.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser and kingpin of his Middle East policy, who also fought to keep arming Israel and lied repeatedly that we were “close” to a ceasefire his administration had no intention of achieving, is back on the board of National Security Action, a group he cofounded that seeks to guide Democrats’ foreign policy positions.
Sullivan’s former deputy, Jon Finer, who also lied to the public that Biden was pressuring Israel for a deal, has also joined the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow. Along with Sullivan, he’s also on the advisory board of Foreign Policy for America, a Democrat-aligned advocacy group with a previously solid record on Gaza.
Middle East lead Brett McGurk, who greenlit Israel’s bloody 2024 invasion of Lebanon and appeared to condone the Israeli government using hunger as a weapon – he and aides later reportedly dismissed reports of starvation in Gaza by quipping “where are all the skinny kids?” – is now a ubiquitous talking head for CNN. He’s not doing TV for the money – he could cash in on his Gulf diplomatic connections in private if he wanted.
It cannot be overstated that none of the top Biden – or Harris – advisers have publicly acknowledged, much less apologized for, their individual contributions to the Gaza genocide, leaving us to take it on faith that they would not abet a genocide again if given the chance in 2029 or beyond.
But why would they owe us any answers? Zero accountability in US foreign policy is the norm. Blinken and Joe Biden himself supported the invasion of Iraq and came out ahead; no officials faced real consequences for Iraq, Libya, Yemen, or for any number of other violent misadventures championed by foreign policy elites. US support for the Gaza genocide is only possible because US officials at all levels understand opposing war crimes is far more hazardous to your career than supporting them.
This inverted accountability structure relies on tacit elite acceptance that the DC’s victims are disposable. Ivy League universities looked past piles of Palestinian bodies to award posts to Sullivan, McGurk, and Finer last year. Harvard, squashing any doubts about the continuity of elite impunity, created a professorship for Jake Sullivan named after Henry Kissinger, which could also be read as a warning about the body count Sullivan might accrue if allowed back in government.
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Sullivan can’t even think of anything he would have done differently in Gaza, nor can Blinken or McGurk. The closest thing to a mea culpa from team Biden came in an op-ed by Finer and top Harris national security adviser Phil Gordon that flatly declared Biden’s rationale for unconditional support for Israel’s government “became far less compelling over time.” They published this in September 2025 – months after the horrific Trump-endorsed famine in Gaza made mainstream Democrats comfortable criticizing the Israeli government – suggesting Finer and Gordon are in possession of more of a weathervane than a backbone. The same goes double for Sullivan, who, around the same time, declared he supported conditioning future arms sales to Israel, with zero reexamination of his own refusal to do just that while he was in power.
Belated post-mortems from Biden officials may occasionally tepidly pin blame on Biden, now conveniently a political non-entity, but never blame the other advisers who actually ran the sunsetting president’s Mideast policy, who are still very much in play. Once you notice these omissions, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the first priority of even the most remorseful Biden advisers is not repairing US foreign policy, it’s protecting the other offenders – and themselves.
That’s the charitable explanation for why a Biden alum would inject themself back into politics without trying to answer for the tens or hundreds of thousands of lives they destroyed or the millions of Americans they deliberately misled, but it also shows why they can’t be trusted to make the right calls if given a second chance.
Real Accountability Must Apply to Both Parties
Every member of Biden’s Gaza team, even those who voiced concerns after his term or – allegedly – during it, continues to make it abundantly clear their solidarity lies with their accomplices, not their victims.
If there’s any hope for justice for those victims, it’s that the excesses of the Trump administration have pushed a growing number of Democratic lawmakers to start talking about accountability. For now, it’s accountability for out-of-control ICE and border patrol agents, for generals who carry out Trump’s unlawful orders, and for Trump officials themselves. But a campaign for accountability can be neither credible nor effective if it applies only to members of one political party.
What would accountability for Blinken, Sullivan, et al, in addition to their Trump administration counterparts, look like? The Department of Justice could investigate them for violating federal laws governing arms transfers. Congress could ratify the Rome Statute, making them eligible for trials at The Hague, or pass laws making it easier for victims’ families to sue US officials. The US could even sign an extradition treaty with a future Palestinian state.
More realistic in the near term is political accountability. Politicians who solicit advice from Biden’s genocide squad deserve to be treated the same way as those who take money from AIPAC: Unworthy of our trust on issues of morality and national security and dangerously out of touch with Democratic voters.
Finally, it’s worth acknowledging the argument in favor of keeping the Biden bunch in rotation, which boils down to: lawmakers and donors already know them, and think they’re experienced and really smart. It’s tough to argue with someone who thinks experience facilitating a genocide is a valuable resume bullet, and the superior intelligence of this cohort is debatable – Blinken tried to simultaneously tut-tut and claim credit for Trump’s first strikes on Iran, and Harris adviser Ilan Goldenberg argued this January that Trump should threaten Iran with airstrikes. But even if you believe in the powers of renowned superbrain Jake Sullivan, we should challenge the notion that the Biden Gaza team is irreplaceable. DC, in fact, has no shortage of talented people who understand government. Some even have principles. Democrats can craft policy and fully staff the National Security Council without an Operation Paperclip for Biden alums who belong at The Hague.
There is room for debate on the scope of accountability, but not on whether to pursue it. Accountability for DC’s genocide class is an imperative: To seek justice for their victims, to prove post-Trump that the United States is still a nation of laws, to keep the original architects of the Gaza genocide from worming their way back into positions where they can again inflict unspeakable harm, and to teach the next generation of national security officials that their careers are best served by preventing war crimes, not abetting them.
What does the world look like if we fail to hold the genocide class to account? You’re living in it.
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Harrison Mann is a former US Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East/Africa Regional Center who resigned in protest of his office’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza under the Biden administration. He is currently with the group Win Without War and recently became a Zeteo contributor.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
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