page_title: Susan Rice
section_title: Post-Obama administration
hierarchical_section_title: Susan Rice / Post-Obama administration
caption_attribution_description: English: On Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, Friends of the LBJ Library hosted a discussion with Susan E. Rice, former National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.Русский: В среду, 20 ноября 2019 года, друзья Библиотеки Линдона Бэйнса Джонсона провели дискуссию со Сьюзен Э. Райс, бывшим советником по национальной безопасности президента США Барака Обамы и экс-послом США в ООН
context_page_description: Susan Elizabeth Rice is an American diplomat, Democratic policy advisor, and former public official, who served as the 27th United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and as the 24th United States national security advisor from 2013 to 2017.
  Rice was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Stanford University and New College at the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar and received a DPhil. She served on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff from 1993 to 1997 and was the assistant secretary of state for African Affairs at the State Department from 1997 to 2001. Appointed at age 32, Rice became the youngest person in U.S. history to serve as an Assistant Secretary of State. Rice's tenure saw significant changes in U.S.–Africa policy, including the passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, support for democratic transitions in South Africa and Nigeria, and an increased U.S. focus on fighting HIV/AIDS.
  A former Brookings Institution fellow, Rice served as a foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidential nominees Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and Barack Obama.
context_section_description: On March 8, 2017, Rice joined American University as a distinguished visiting research fellow in the School of International Service (SIS) at the university. In her residency she planned to work on her next book and mentoring young SIS students.
  On April 3, 2017, Eli Lake reported in Bloomberg View that as National Security Advisor, Rice had requested that the identities of some Americans mentioned in intelligence reports related to the campaign and presidential transition of Donald Trump be unmasked. Any request for an American's identity to be unmasked required approval by the National Security Agency; NSA director Michael Rogers said the NSA evaluated each request to determine "Is there a valid need to know in the course of the execution of their official duties?" and "Is the identification necessary to truly understand the context of the intelligence value that the report is designed to generate?" Rice said that she asked for identities of U.S. persons to be revealed to provide context to the intelligence reports, and not for political purposes.
  The report of Rice unmasking Trump officials followed the announcement of the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes, "that he had seen reports indicating that Mr. Trump or his associates might have been 'incidentally' swept up in the monitoring of foreigners." The Committee was investigating both Trump's ties to Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election and Trump's allegations that President Obama had Trump Tower under surveillance. Lake's April 3 report of the unmasking specified "Rice's requests to unmask the names of Trump transition officials do not vindicate Trump's own tweets from March 4 in which he accused Obama of illegally tapping Trump Tower." Nevertheless, some Republicans called for an investigation into the unmasking while Democrats said that the unmasking story was a diversion from the Russian influence investigation.
  After members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were able to view the material on which Nunes based his assertions, both Democrats and Republicans familiar with the material said that there was "no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal." Congressional intelligence sources called Rice's unmasking requests "normal and appropriate" for a national security adviser.
  In August 2017, Eli Lake reported in Bloomberg View that Rice's successor as National Security Adviser, H. R. McMaster, "has concluded that Rice did nothing wrong."
  Rice testified to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017 that she requested the unmasking because of a redacted report provided by the intelligence services concerning an undisclosed visit to the United States by United Arab Emirates crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in December 2016.  During the visit al-Nahyan met with Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in New York. Rice's testimony appeared to allay the concerns of Republicans, with Committee member Mike Conaway stating, "She was a good witness, answered all our questions. I'm not aware of any reason to bring her back."
  On March 28, 2018, Rice was appointed to the board of directors at Netflix.
  Rice criticized the United States' close relationship with Saudi Arabia despite murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses, Saudi Arabia's diplomatic dispute with Canada, Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and Saudi Arabian-led blockade against Qatar. In a New York Times article "A Partner We Can’t Depend On," Rice wrote: "If we fail to punish [Saudi crown prince Bin Salman] directly and target only those around him, the crown prince will be further emboldened to take extreme actions." Rice also criticized Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, which critics say gave Turkey the green light to invade and occupy northern Syria and attack Kurdish forces who assisted the U.S. in the destruction of the Islamic State.
  After U.S. Senator Susan Collins from Maine voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Cour
caption: Rice at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in 2019
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