Obama’s Three Women Who Brought Him His Third Term

“Obama dubbed his all-female senior national security team “The Furies.” Avril, Lisa, and I commanded significant power behind the scenes and were the three women Obama most loved to tease. Never before, I am sure, had such small packages wielded such national security punch.” says Susan Rice.

“The three of us were quite conscious of the rare gift we enjoyed of having two other strong, supportive women as our closest colleagues. Between the three of us, there was always candor and trust.” In an essay and audio excerpt from her memoir, “Tough Love,” former National Security Advisor Susan Rice reflects on the bond between herself, Avril Haines and Lisa Monaco that made them President Obama’s “Furies.” In October 2019 a post entitled

Three Women Who Came Together to Help Change the White House

Written by Susan Rice. She was hawking her book. Knowing what we know now, it is a worthy pursuit to revisit her words. Let’s see where we are with the three of them today. Monaco flies under the radar, but reports are that she is the one running the AG’s office as Deputy. Garland is the figure head. Haines? At the moment she as DNI is rifling through the documents vacuumed up at Mar-a-Largo. Rice? No need to elaborate on that one. I highly recommend reading the full post linked above.

In an essay and audio excerpt from her new memoir, “Tough Love,” former National Security Advisor Susan Rice reflects on the bond between herself, Avril Haines and Lisa Monaco that made them President Obama’s “Furies.” Here is a link to the audio clip of her book

Tough Love

In my last two years as NSA, I was extremely fortunate to have the invaluable input, support, and counsel of my sisters, Avril Haines and Lisa Monaco. Avril replaced the wonderful Tony Blinken, who became deputy secretary of state in December 2014.

A physicist, pilot, bookstore owner, lawyer, and former deputy White House counsel for national security and deputy director of the CIA, with years of additional work in the Senate and at the State Department, Avril is brilliant and brought deep knowledge and broad experience back to the NSC. Already well-known to the president and NSC staff, she adapted easily to her new role. Patient, wise, and calm, Avril helped soothe my sharper impulses with her uniquely disarming combination of love and reason.

Another accomplished lawyer, Lisa had served as a federal prosecutor, chief of staff to FBI director Robert Mueller, and most recently as assistant attorney general for national security when President Obama appointed her his homeland security and counterterrorism advisor in March 2013. Tough, plainspoken, with an acerbic wit and a well-buried soft streak, Lisa took no prisoners in all she did — from killing terrorists to punishing cyber criminals.

…..In the privacy of the Oval, President Obama dubbed his all-female senior national security team “The Furies.” Avril, Lisa, and I — though all petite in stature — commanded significant power behind the scenes and were the three women President Obama most loved to tease. Never before, I am sure, had such small packages wielded such national security punch. Together, we led and managed the predominantly white male national security cabinet and deputies.

…

Often, Lisa, Avril, and I had to combine our collective efforts to tame a balky bureaucracy and deliver to the president the policy outcomes he sought. That variously entailed massaging, cajoling, pressing, and, if necessary, rolling certain agencies to achieve presidential objectives, which they initially resisted. These ranged from safely and responsibly but substantially increasing refugee admissions numbers and reducing the prison population at Guantánamo, to requiring public reporting by DOD and CIA of the number of civilians accidentally killed in counterterrorism operations, and to ensuring that as we reconfigured our military presence in Afghanistan, we did not fall back into the trap of having Americans directly fighting the Taliban, except in clear cases of self-defense.

All in place. Obama himself proclaiming the coup de tat that was to be. Not by Trump but by the man himself.

The same Avril that wants to quickly investigate the Trump documents and push forward an indictment?

Throw in Holder who’s advising the Jan 6 committee. What a gang intent of rebuilding America for Barry when he couldn’t finish the job

Monaco’s ties to Biden go back to the 1990s, when she was a junior staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee he led. From there, she went to law school and became a federal prosecutor, rising quickly in the Justice Department and eventually joining the team that prosecuted Enron executives over that firm’s self-destructive financial trickery. That group of lawyers would later hold some of the most important posts inside the agency.

Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor who was part of the Enron team, said Monaco has always shown “the same rigorous and dispassionate examination of the law and facts, unafraid of making the tough calls necessary to serve the public interest.” She was, he said, “the truly ideal choice” to become deputy attorney general, a job law enforcement professionals call “the DAG.”

Biden has said Garland, Monaco and the rest of his Justice Department picks are tasked with restoring the Justice Department’s independence from partisan politics and adherence to the rule of law after the Trump years, when the president regularly demanded the department investigate his political opponents and exonerate his friends and allies. Washington Post

The very best of the swamp today.