Brett McGurk Bio

Brett McGurk (Brett H. McGurk) is an American diplomat who served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS since his appointment by President Barack Obama on 23rd October 2015 until his resignation on 22nd December 2018. He was born on 20th April 1973.

Brett McGurk Age

Born on 20th April 1973, Brett is 45 years old as of 2018.

Brett McGurk Wife

He is married to Gina Chon since 2012 after he divorced his previous wife Caroline Wong.

Brett McGurk Family

McGurk is the son of Barry McGurk , an English professor, and Carol Ann Capobianco , an art teacher, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After living in Pennsylvania for a while, his family moved to West Hartford, Connecticut, where he went to school at Conard High School graduating in 1991.

Brett McGurk Education

He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Connecticut Honors Program in 1996, and his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 1999. He was a Senior Editor of the Columbia Law Review, a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, while at Columbia, and won the prize for the best-written brief in Columbia Law School’s Moot Court Honors Competition.

Brett McGurk Career

Upon graduating, McGurk served three consecutive clerkships at progressively higher levels of the federal judiciary. His first job was working for Judge Gerard E. Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York: second, for Judge Dennis Jacobs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit , Manhattan; and, finally, for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court. McGurk served briefly as an appellate litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, after completing his clerkships.

He replaced General John R. Allen to whom he had been a deputy, serving as a Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. From October 2014 through January 2016, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran, at the U.S. Department of State, and led 14 months of secret negotiations with Iran that led to a prisoner swap and release of four Americans from Evin Prison in Tehran, including the Washington Post journalist, Jason Rezaian. The success in the assignment, among others, reinforced McGurk’s “reputation as a doer”, according to the NY Times.

McGurk earlier served under President George W. Bush as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan, and under President Obama as Special Advisor to the U.S. National Security Council and Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. He also served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court during the Court’s 2001 October Term.

Brett McGurk Resignation

President-Elect Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer announced on 19th January 2017, that the incoming administration would retain McGurk in his role leading the counter-ISIS campaign. On 22nd December 2018, McGurk announced his resignation from his role amidst President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria .

His resignation comes on the heels of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s announced departure on 20th December 2018 over differences with the White House over foreign policy, immediately following Trump’s decision. Mattis stated that he would stay on until February to ensure a smooth transition.

Both him and Mattis objected to what they saw as shortsighted decision and a breach of faith with U.S. allies including the Syrian Kurds, who fought alongside U.S. forces in Syria and now face a dangerous and uncertain future.

For Trump, the long-serving government officials are the first high-profile departures in protest of his policy decisions.

McGurk’s departure is effective 31st December 2018, according to The Washington Postan earlier exit than his intended departure in mid-February 2019.

Brett McGurk Wife (Gina Chon), Controversy on Ambassadorial nomination

McGurk was on 26th March 2012, nominated to become the next United States Ambassador to Iraq, succeeding James F. Jeffrey. However, his confirmation, soon became embroiled in controversy after a series of his emails were leaked to the press and published on Cryptome. The inappropriate emails were exchanged with Gina Chon (his current wife) who was then a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Critics claimed that the extramarital affair cast doubt on his ability to lead and manage the embassy, while supporters argue that it was at most a momentary lapse in judgment and that McGurk and Chon were a married couple when the series of emails from five years earlier leaked. Its still not clear as to who was responsible for the leak.

McGurk on 18th June 2012, submitted a letter to President Obama requesting to withdrew himself from further consideration. Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said in a statement later that day, “While we regret to see Brett withdraw his candidacy, there is no doubt that he will be called on again to serve the country.” The position eventually went to Robert S. Beecroft.

His wife, Chon was later accused of sharing articles with McGurk before publication and was forced to resign from the newspaper. The two got married in 2012, after McGurk’s amicable divorce from his previous wife, Caroline Wong.

Brett McGurk Net Worth

His exact net worth is not known yet

Brett McGurk Twitter

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Brett McGurk News

Days before he resigned, US envoy Brett McGurk warned that ISIS will take years to defeat

Source: cnbc.com

Just days before submitting his resignation, U.S. special envoy Brett McGurk, who heads the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State, said in an exclusive interview that putting an end to ISIS will be a long-term, multiyear effort.

“We’re on track now over the coming months to defeat what used to be the physical space that ISIS controlled,” McGurk told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble. “That will not be the end of ISIS.”

The conversation with McGurk took place on Dec. 15 at a security forum in Doha, Qatar. Just four days later, President Donald Trump would declare the Islamic State defeated and announce the withdrawal of all U.S. forces fighting ISIS from Syria.

“Nobody is naive,” McGurk said less than a week before Trump’s decision. “The small clandestine cells, the individual terrorist attacks, will remain a threat for some time. That is why we have to remain together as a global coalition to keep the pressure on.”

McGurk submitted his resignation on Friday, effective Dec. 31, a State Department official said on Saturday. A person familiar with the matter said McGurk quit because he objected to President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out U.S. troops from Syria, a decision followed by the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis a day later.

The former envoy’s departure — along with that of Mattis — has sparked much internal hand-wringing in Washington, as many lawmakers worry who will fill the gap America leaves behind.

“Anytime you see vacuums open up you see extremist groups fill the vacuum,” McGurk said. “We’ve seen it in Libya, in Yemen, and in Iraq and Syria. One of the first principal questions is try to not get into that situation in the first place.”

“I think that policies that try to change regimes — obviously something that President Trump ran on — is not something that we’re trying to do,” McGurk said. “What we’re trying to do is to make sure that we can work as best we can with governments in the region to protect their borders, to protect their homelands, share information with us so we can protect ourselves.”