Two of Joe Biden's national security picks have ties to past scandals

Joe Biden reached deep into the Obama Administration's alumni for his prospective Cabinet – should he be certified the winner of the 2020 election – and in so doing also threatened to resurrect old scandals like Hillary Clinton's email debacle and the Hunter Biden influence controversy.

Biden on Monday announced he wanted as his national security advisor former State Department official Jake Sullivan, who at 43 years old would be the youngest in history. Biden also chose longtime Senate and White House aide Antony Blinken to be his secretary of state should he be sworn in on Jan. 20.

While both picks command enormous respect in national security circles, their past ties to Obama-era scandals could give Republicans fodder for confirmation hearings. Sullivan was a key figure in the probe of Clinton’s mishandling of classified information on a private email server, while Blinken had contacts with Hunter Biden and his Burisma Holdings colleagues in the Ukraine impeachment drama.

Emails recovered from Clinton’s private email server show Sullivan was among the senior State officials to regularly correspond with the secretary of state using the insecure communications channel, including sending her information that was subsequently deemed to be classified at the top secret and secret level.

For instance Sullivan emailed Clinton on her personal account a memo about Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on June 7, 2012, a topic later to be determined to classified at the “secret” level. Clinton responded several hours later:

“I’m even more determined to do this and have some ideas I want to discuss w[ith] you,” Clinton wrote Sullivan.

At the time, U.S.-Pakistani relations were facing a difficult patch as Khar was demanding the United States apologize for an airstrike that killed 26 Pakistanis the previous day.