BRIAN HOOK
Multiple roles
2017-2021
@SRBrianHook
HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BROKE THE STATE DEPARTMENT
July 31, 2017
The plans to bolster the policy planning staff reflect Tillerson’s reliance on a close coterie of advisors, closing himself off from the rest of the department. Top among them are his enigmatic chief of staff, Margaret Peterlin, and his director of policy planning, Brian Hook, a mainstream Republican who worked in the State Department and the White House during the George W. Bush administration.
“The seventh floor has walled itself off with Brian Hook, Margaret Peterlin, and some others,” a senior foreign service officer told FP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Some people get through the wall, but it’s few and far between.”
More than one official referred to them as the “praetorian guard.”
TRUMP’S IRAN ENVOY REASSIGNED A STAFFER AFTER RIGHT-WING MEDIA ACCUSED HER OF DISLOYALTY
November 14, 2019
The report says Hook and his team removed Iran expert Sahar Nowrouzzadeh — referred to in the report only as “Employee One” — from a senior policy-planning role on the Iran portfolio in 2017 not because of the quality of her work but rather because of perceptions that she hated Trump, had a preference for Democrats, and was loyal to Iran, not the US.
The Inspector General also looked into four other State employees for their alleged bias in personnel handling. However, the report “found no evidence that inappropriate factors played a role in relevant decisions” involving two of the cases, and not enough information to make an informed decision one way or the other on the other two cases.
But the case involving Hook’s actions toward Nowrouzzadeh is by far the most consequential of the bunch, as Hook is the senior official in charge of leading Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign against Iran and is close to top White House officials, including Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner.
TRUMP’S IRAN WHISPERER
December 3, 2019
Current and former State employees — many of whom worked with or for Hook — complain the top diplomat ignores them or shuts them out completely. A State Department report detailed how Hook pushed out a staffer over outside conservative pressure for bigoted and partisan reasons, a conclusion he fiercely denies.
It all adds fodder for his many critics in Congress who say his grasp of Iran policy is rudimentary and overly aggressive. “I’m not a fan of his,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, told me. “He is like a John Bolton type: bellicose first, analyze later, if at all, then justify the bellicose actions we take as necessary. I don’t think his assessment of the Iran situation shows much real-world connection.”
IRAN ENVOY BRIAN HOOK, A ‘SURVIVOR’ ON TRUMP’S TEAM, TO QUIT
November 30, 2020
He had his critics inside the State Department, who saw him as a political player. Last November, a State Department inspector general report found that in early 2017, Mr. Hook played a role in the reassignment of a nonpartisan career official in his office after conservatives accused her of sympathy to Mr. Obama and the Iran nuclear deal. Mr. Hook denied any political motivation in the reassignment.
His record of diplomatic success was mixed. As Mr. Trump threatened to scrap the Iran deal in 2018, Mr. Hook met regularly with Western European officials in an ultimately futile effort to convince them — especially the Germans — to reopen the accord and toughen its terms. The effort failed, and Mr. Trump’s decision to exit the accord led to a rift with the European powers, Russia and China on Iran policy that remained to this day.
TRUMP’S STATE DEPARTMENT HAD A “HUMILIATING” LACK OF DIVERSITY. CAN JOE BIDEN FIX IT?
January 15, 2021
Under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s watch, department officials discriminated against an Iranian American policy official on the basis of ethnicity, meriting a harsh condemnation from the State Department inspector general (who Tillerson’s successor, Mike Pompeo, later fired). Brian Hook, the State official at the center of the scandal, was later given a high-profile role coordinating Iran policy for Pompeo.