O’Brien was among a list of five contenders Trump named the day before, a list that had apparently been narrowed from about 15 in the days immediately after Bolton’s ouster.
Unlike Bolton, O’Brien is not a big name in the intelligence and national security world — Fred Fleitz, Bolton’s former chief of staff who was also considered for the post, said he knows next to nothing about O’Brien except that he “seems to have pretty good credentials on paper.”
Asked whether the Senate Intelligence Committee knew anything about O’Brien, an aide said, “nope, not really.”
O’Brien, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz, comes aboard as Trump faces a number of crises in the Middle East, including attempts to broker peace in Afghanistan with the Taliban as well as between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The administration is also grappling with how to confront an increasingly hostile Iranian regime, on which Trump announced a fresh package of sanctions just moments before revealing that he'd tapped O'Brien for his new post.
Trump has also thrown out the possibility of a third nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prior to next year’s election, in addition to the prospect of reaching a new arms deal with Russia and continuing efforts to beat back the Islamic State — all of which will require O’Brien’s involvement.
Prior to joining the Trump administration, O’Brien served as co-chairman of the State Department's public-private partnership for justice reform in Afghanistan under both President Barack Obama and George W. Bush. He also served as a U.S. Representative to the U.N. General Assembly in 2005, where he worked alongside Bolton.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force one Wednesday, Trump praised O’Brien, an aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with whom he’s worked with to free Americans held captive abroad, as “fantastic.”
Trump has frequently touted his administration’s record in freeing American hostages — sometimes referring to himself as “chief hostage negotiator” — at times giving himself an outsize role in efforts to free American hostages. The president recently made a show of dispatching O’Brien to Sweden to assist in the case of rapper A$AP Rocky, who’d been jailed on assault charges.
O'Brien made Trump look smart, and he's familiar with foreign policy, so he gets the job. Whether he actually wants it as the world is rapidly speeding towards a US shooting war with Iran, is yet to be determined. Remember: this is still someone willingly working for Donald Trump.
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