After watching the Trump-Biden debate on June 27, thoughtful people around the world are asking the key question: Biden is clearly not running the U.S. government, so who is? Who actually controls the policies and actions of the man who has his finger on the nuclear button, as the United States escalates two wars (Ukraine and Southwest Asia), either of which could lead to a nuclear confrontation with Russia and China?
Seymour Hersh’s June 28 article singles out Tom Donilon, Obama’s National Security Adviser from 2010-2013, as well as Tom’s younger brother Mike, as among the key insiders around President Joe Biden who have played an oversized role in shaping policy, and who also function as part of a palace guard to keep him living in a bubble of unreality. The New York Times published an article on June 22 headlined “The Insiders: The 3 Men at the Core of Biden’s Brain Trust,” which identifies Mike Donilon, as well as Ron Klain (White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023) and Ted Kaufman (U.S. senator from Delaware from 2009 to 2010) as the three key figures.
EIR takes these commentaries not as facts, but as useful investigative leads—having carried out its own investigations about these and related individuals for decades.
It is noteworthy that Tom Donilon is currently Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute—yes, that BlackRock—and that during his stint with Obama he “chaired the cabinet level National Security Principals Committee, provided the President’s daily national security briefing, and was responsible for the coordination and integration of the administration’s foreign policy, intelligence, and military efforts,” according to the bragging BlackRock website.
In an earlier role as chief of staff at the State Department under Bill Clinton, Donilon “was responsible for the development and implementation of the department’s major policy initiatives, including NATO expansion.”
Donilon is also a leading member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, the Brookings Institution Board of Trustees, and the Trilateral Commission.
His earlier roots are also revealing. “During the first Bush administration, Donilon was recruited to the law firm O’Melveny & Myers by Warren Christopher, the firm’s senior partner,” Wikipedia reports. O’Melveny is considered one of the most elite and influential law firms in the country, and it turns out that Ron Klain, featured with Donilon in the New York Times article, is also a partner at O’Melveny. Klain was Biden’s White House Chief of Staff from 2021-2023, and returned to the law firm in April 2023.
O’Melveny is one of those high-powered Establishment law firms that operates way above mere party politics. For example, Wikipedia reports that “the firm defended Donald Trump against a lawsuit over Trump University. O’Melveny vetted the President’s nominees. The firm represented the Trump inaugural committee when it was investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. O’Melveny also represented President Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, over allegations of conflicted investments.”
