Anonymous ID: 8e57be June 24, 2020, 9:16 a.m. No.9730250   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>0278 >>0563 >>0679 >>0695 >>0829

>>9730162

George P. Kent

George P. Kent is an American diplomat serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs since September 4, 2018.[1] As a United States Foreign Service officer, his early service has included assignments in the U.S. diplomatic missions to Poland, Thailand and Uzbekistan. In 2004, he was assigned to serve as deputy political counselor in Kyiv, Ukraine, and was deputy chief of mission in Kyiv from 2015 to 2018.

 

On October 15, 2019, Kent gave a deposition in the House impeachment inquiry of President Trump. He appeared again before the House Intelligence Committee in a public hearing alongside Ambassador Bill Taylor, the U.S. chargé d'affaires ad interim to Ukraine.[2][3]

 

Kent graduated from high school in 1985 at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina.[4] He graduated in 1989 with an A.B. in Russian History & Literature from Harvard University. He then earned an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1992.[1] Kent later graduated with an M.S. in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces of the National Defense University in 2012.[5]

 

Kent has been in the State Department's foreign service since 1992.[6][7] He speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and Thai, as well as some Polish, German, and Italian.[1] He has worked as a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Ukraine, Poland, Thailand and Uzbekistan.[5]

 

From 1995 to 1997, he was posted in Warsaw, Poland, as an economics officer dealing with trade, environmental, and counter-narcotics issues.[5] Kent was later assigned to serve as deputy political counselor in Kyiv, Ukraine, from 2004 to 2007, which include the time period of the Orange Revolution.[5] From 2012 to 2014, Kent served as director of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.[1] He served as a senior anti-corruption coordinator in the European bureau in 2014–2015,[1] and as deputy chief of mission in Kyiv from 2015 to 2018.[7] On September 4, 2018, he was appointed to his current position as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.[5][7]

 

External video

Testimony of Kent and Ambassador William Taylor before the House Intelligence Committee, November 13, 2019, C-SPAN

On October 15, 2019, Kent gave a deposition in the House impeachment inquiry of President Trump, serving as a key witness on whether Rudy Giuliani used a campaign of disinformation to undermine the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.[8] Kent's warnings regarding the disinformation campaign are documented in State Department emails submitted to Congress by the organization's inspector general. Kent protested a "fake news smear" directed at Ambassador Yovanovitch by media commentators supportive of President Trump. He also criticized the Ukrainian prosecutor undermining Yovanovitch, calling the disinformation "complete poppycock."[9] On November 13, 2019, along with Ambassador Bill Taylor, Kent gave public testimony to the House Intelligence Committee during the first public hearing.[10]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Kent

Anonymous ID: 8e57be June 24, 2020, 9:18 a.m. No.9730278   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>0290 >>0563 >>0679 >>0695 >>0829

>>9730250

Amos Hochstein

Amos J. Hochstein[1] (born January 4, 1973) is a U.S. businessman, former diplomat, lobbyist, and national security and energy expert. He has worked in the U.S. Congress, has testified before congressional panels[2] and has served in the Barack Obama administration under Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs. In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination.

 

While at the State Department, Hochstein worked as a close advisor to Vice-President Joe Biden.[3] He served in the administration from 2011 to 2017.[4]

 

In March 2017, he joined Tellurian, a private Houston-based LNG company, where he serves as Senior Vice President Marketing. He serves on the supervisory board of Ukrainian Naftogaz as well as the boards of the Atlantic Council and U.S.-India Business Council.

 

In October 2019 Hochstein was mentioned by former U.S. officials in relation to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. It was reported that as early as May 2019 Hochstein alerted the National Security Council staff that Rudy Giuliani and Gordon Sondland's pressure tactics were rattling Ukraine president Zelenskiy.[5] It was also reported that Rick Perry planned to have Hochstein replaced as a member of the board at Naftogaz with someone aligned with Republican interests. Perry denied the reports.[6][7]

 

Hochstein began his career in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill where he first served on the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs staff.[8] In subsequent years he served in a variety of senior level positions, including the House International Relations Committee,[9] where he served as Senior Policy Advisor.[10] In 1997 he later was sent to North Korea to report on the country's economic and military status as well as the progress and opportunities for humanitarian relief efforts.[11]

 

Later, Hochstein served as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Hochstein first served as the principal Democratic staff person on the Economic Policy, Trade & Environment Subcommittee where he oversaw work authorizing Ex-Im Bank, OPIC and USTDA, as well as drafting legislation on export controls and trade-related multilateral organizations and regimes.

 

Hochstein also worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to then-Governor Mark Warner, and later as Policy Director for Senator Chris Dodd.[1] He joined Dodd's team in the beginning of 2007 and was the Policy Director during his 2008 Presidential campaign.[12][13]

 

Hochstein was also an aide to Representative Sam Gejdenson.[14] During his time on Capitol Hill, Hochstein travelled to Iraq and was involved in U.S. back-channel diplomatic discussions to potentially lift U.S. economic sanctions in exchange for the potential resettlement of several thousand Palestinian refugees in Central Iraq. Hochstein argued that the economic sanctions had to be maintained while conceding that it was necessary to "humanise" those sanctions.[15]

 

On October 8, 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, the official chief position for the bureau.[51][52] Hochstein continued his efforts in all previously engaged fields of national and international energy and security matters,[53] including Iran sanctions,[54][55] energy opportunities in Latin America,[56] the US-India energy cooperation,[57] the US-China energy cooperation, the administration’s strategy on Russia,[58] and the fight against ISIS.[59]

 

He also was involved in discussing and mapping out details of the Southern Gas Corridor project generally[59] and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline with Greece specifically.[60]

 

He authored the White House Caribbean Energy Security Initiative and chaired President Obama's U.S.-Caribbean and U.S.-Central America Energy Security Task Force. He also continued to lead U.S. efforts to promote global fuel switching to natural gas and develop stronger natural gas markets in Asia and South Asia.[59] He headed the State Department's Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program, formerly known as Global Shale Gas Initiative.[61]

 

He was succeeded by Frank R. Fannon, now Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources.[62]

 

Since leaving the White House, Hochstein appeared on a Trump White House panel promoting the use of fossil fuels at the 2016 Bonn Climate Change Conference.[63]

 

Hochstein is a member of the supervisory board at Naftogaz[73] and servers on the board of the Atlantic Council[65] and the U.S.-Indian Business Council.[74]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Hochstein