Robert C. O'Brien (lawyer)

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Robert C. O'Brien (2018)

Robert Charles O'Brien (born 1966 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American attorney, diplomat and national security advisor to the US President .

Life

O'Brien graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles , with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1988 and law from the University of California, Berkeley , with a JD in 1991. In the same year he was admitted to the California bar and was 1991 through 1996 Associate with the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. From 1996 to 1998 he worked in the Geneva- based UN commission to compensate for the damage caused by the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. He also served as a major in the US Army Justice Service from 1992 to 2005, including at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth and in the reserve. From 2007 to 2016 he was with the law firm Arent Fox, whose Californian branch he built up and with which he was managing partner, and since 2016 has been a partner in the law firm Larson O'Brien in Los Angeles, which he worked with former judge Stephen G. Larson founded.

Robert O'Brien speaks to the UN General Assembly (2005)

Under George W. Bush he was one of the representatives of the USA at the UN in 2005/06, among other things in a committee on international terrorism. In addition, from December 2007 he was one of the two heads of the US advisors (Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform) for judicial reform in Afghanistan , which he remained under the administration of Barack Obama until November 2011. From 2008 to 2011 he was a member of the US State Department's Cultural Property Advisory Committee.

He is Republican and was an advisor to presidential candidate Mitt Romney from 2011 , Scott Walker's 2015 and Ted Cruz's 2016 .

In 2016 he published the book While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis , which takes a critical look at Barack Obama's security and foreign policy .

O'Brien (left) takes the oath of office as special envoy from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2018)

He became special envoy for hostage issues in Donald Trump's administration in May 2018. A year later he was given the rank of ambassador. In August 2019, he negotiated on behalf of the US government in the case of rapper ASAP Rocky in Sweden , who was in custody there. On September 18, 2019, he became National Security Advisor to the US President, succeeding John R. Bolton .

Originally a Catholic, he converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Since he studied at the University of Free State in South Africa in 1987 , he is fluent in Afrikaans .

Web links

Commons : Robert C. O'Brien (attorney)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthew Brown: "Romney and friends say new national security adviser has skills to work with Trump" , Deseret News , September 18, 2019. After that he was 53 years old at the date of publication.
  2. ↑ As of September 22, 2019, it is no longer listed among the partners on the law firm's website.
personal data
SURNAME O'Brien, Robert C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Brien, Robert Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American attorney and security advisor to the US President
DATE OF BIRTH 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California