Robert C. O'Brien


Robert Charles O'Brien Jr. is an American lawyer serving as the 28th United States National Security Advisor since 2019. He is the fourth person to hold that position during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Education and early career

O'Brien was born in Los Angeles and raised in Santa Rosa, California, where he attended Cardinal Newman High School. He received a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1988, and a J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1991. He won a Rotary scholarship to study at the University of the Free State in South Africa in 1987.
From 1996 to 1998, O'Brien was a legal officer with the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, which reviewed and processed claims resulting from Iraq's 1990–91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The amounts of compensation ranged into hundreds of millions of dollars, and were sourced from a 30% take from Iraq's oil revenues.
O'Brien served as a Major in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the US Army Reserve. While in private practice he also served in appointive positions for the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.

Private practice

O'Brien was the California managing partner of Arent Fox LLP, a national law firm, for seven years. During that time he grew the California offices from 10 attorneys to more than 110. He represented Buzz Aldrin in a number of high-profile cases, and also represented the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste in proceedings initiated by ConocoPhillips.
O'Brien was the federal court-appointed Discovery Master in the MGA v. Mattel case. O'Brien also serves as the federal court appointed Discovery Master on the recently settled United States of America v. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and Standard & Poor's Financial Services Inc..
O'Brien was a civilian observer for the Pacific Council on International Policy at the pre-trial hearings for alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in June 2014. He served on the International Republican Institute's delegations observing the Republic of Georgia's 2013 presidential election and Ukraine's 2014 parliamentary election.
O'Brien was a founding partner, along with former federal judge Stephen Larson, of the Los Angeles boutique law firm Larson O'Brien LLP, which they established in January 2016. O'Brien retired from the firm when he was appointed National Security Advisor.

Political career

George W. Bush and Obama administrations

O'Brien was nominated by President George W. Bush as the U.S. Alternate Representative to the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly during 2005–06. He addressed the General Assembly on the question of Palestine, and represented the United States in the General Assembly's Sixth Committee, which considered the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
O'Brien served as Co-Chairman of the U.S. Department of State's Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, launched in December 2007, which "promoted the rule of law" in Afghanistan by training judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. He continued this role during the first term of the Obama administration.
On July 31, 2008, President Bush announced his intention to appoint O'Brien to serve in his administration as a member of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, an advisory committee on issues involving antiquities and cultural matters, for the remainder of a three-year term which expired on April 25, 2011.

Mitt Romney 2012 campaign

In October 2011, O'Brien was named to Mitt Romney's advisory team as Co-Chair of the International Organizations Work Group.

2016 presidential election

Later, in May 2015, he became an adviser on foreign policy and national security affairs for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's presidential campaign. After Walker left the race, O'Brien advised Ted Cruz's campaign. During the time he advised Ted Cruz's presidential campaign, he claimed: "It's clear that Vladimir Putin just doesn't like , and is going to do what he can to help Donald Trump."

Trump administration

In 2017, O'Brien was under consideration by the Donald Trump administration to serve as Secretary of the Navy. The Orange County Register editorial board endorsed O'Brien to serve in this position, stating, "He is the ideal candidate to ensure American global dominance continues—in a way that fits both the present national mood and our enduring national values."
From May 25, 2018 to October 3, 2019, O'Brien served as the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. He was given the rank of ambassador one year after his appointment. He attended the trial of the American rapper ASAP Rocky in Stockholm, Sweden and told reporters "The president sent me here, so it's totally appropriate. I also help free people that are held by governments, so unjustly detained Americans." O'Brien had written the Swedish government warning of "negative consequences" if the case was not resolved. He "helped secure the 2018 release of American pastor Andrew Brunson, whose two-year imprisonment in Turkey heightened tensions between Washington and Ankara." O'Brien was also involved in obtaining the release of Danny Burch, an American oil worker held in Yemen for a year, and who ultimately received an Oval Office meeting with President Trump.
O'Brien took office as the 28th United States National Security Advisor on September 18, 2019. President Trump appointed O'Brien to succeed John Bolton, who resigned earlier that month. A few days later, O'Brien announced that Matthew Pottinger would become the deputy national security advisor, replacing Charles Kupperman in that role. O'Brien was seen as a traditional foreign policy conservative rather than a firebrand.
Early in his tenure, O'Brien accompanied Vice President Mike Pence to meet Turkish President Recep Erdogan in efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Turkey and Kurdish forces in Syria after the U.S. abruptly withdrew military forces that stood between Turkish and Kurdish forces.
In December 2019, O'Brien defended Trump's decision to pardon Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, a convicted war criminal who was alleged by multiple fellow Navy SEALs of shooting innocent civilians and of murdering a sedated injured teenage ISIS fighter.
After the Trump administration's strike against Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and commander of its Quds Force, O'Brien defended the intelligence the administration used to justify the killing, arguing that Soleimani had been planning attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic installations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
O'Brien was named to the White House Coronavirus Task Force when it was established on January 29, 2020. He took a low profile in responding to the pandemic. In July 2020, he was reported to have contracted the virus.
The National Security Council under O'Brien took a greater focus on China, and he aligned himself with Peter Navarro, a fellow hardliner on China. He threatened sanctions against China if it moved to pass a national security law that pro-democracy activists believed would undermine freedom in Hong Kong. O'Brien also criticized China for its actions amid territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and oversaw an increase in U.S. and allied military activity intended to guarantee freedom of navigation. O'Brien criticized China's government, saying in a speech that "The Chinese Communist Party is Marxist-Leninist," and "The party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor." In the same speech, he asserted: "Together with our allies and partners, we will resist the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to manipulate our people and our governments, damage our economies, and undermine our sovereignty."
As plans emerged to reduce the number of U.S. military forces stationed in Europe, O'Brien defended the move, arguing, "The Cold War practice of garrisoning large numbers of troops with their families on massive bases in places like Germany is now, in part, obsolete."
When many other intelligence officials who had been involved in briefing Trump on national security characterized Trump as inattentive, O'Brien disputed the characterization, saying Trump was "laser-focused on the issues at hand and asks probing questions throughout the briefings — it reminds me of appearing before a well-prepared appellate judge and defending the case."
O'Brien cut the National Security Council staff, with a plan to limit its size to 105 professionals. It had grown from 110 staff members in the Bush administration to over 240 under the Obama administration. He argued the purpose was to restore the coordinating function of the organization: "Under previous administrations, the NSC more than doubled in size and duplicated many of the functions of DoD, State and the intelligence community. Under President Trump, we have brought the NSC back to its proper size and role as a coordinating body." For the first time, half of the senior directors at the NSC were women under O'Brien's management.
In May 2020, after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, O'Brien rejected that there was systemic racism in U.S. police forces.
In an article published on July 12, 2020, three weeks after the release of his predecessor's book The Room Where It Happened, O'Brien defended Trump's record on China, stating that "the United States continues to stand against policies, especially as they are aimed at the Uighurs."
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced on July 27, 2020, that O'Brien had been diagnosed with COVID-19. White House officials announced that O'Brien was experiencing "mild symptoms" and is "self-isolating and working from a secure location off site".

Personal life

Raised a Catholic, O'Brien converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his twenties. He is married to Lo-Mari O'Brien, and the couple raised three children: Margaret, Robert and Lauren. His son Robert died in an accidental drowning in 2015.

Books

O'Brien is the author of the 2016 book While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis. Writing in Foreign Policy, Daniel Runde said, "While America Slept is the 2016 equivalent of Richard Nixon's The Real War." A former colleague from the George W. Bush administration, Runde summarized O'Brien's views as follows:
In The Hill, Bart Marcois, a retired foreign service officer, wrote, "If you're wondering what trends and events will drive President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy, you need to read While America Slept, by Robert O'Brien."
Other reviews were more critical. Alex Ward, the associate director in the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, noted that "O'Brien's book is frustrating because it starts with the assumption that all of Obama's foreign policy choices are bad and assumes the reader believes this as well...is analysis, while passionately and decently argued, missed the bigger picture through the partisan fog." The book is broadly critical of the Obama administration's security and foreign policies.