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United States President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named Adam Boehler as his special envoy for hostage affairs. Boehler acted as the negotiator on Trump's behalf in the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
"He has negotiated with some of the toughest people in the World, including the Taliban, but Adam knows that NO ONE is tougher than the United States of America, at least when President Trump is its Leader. Adam will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME," Trump said in a statement after announcing the appointment.
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Adam Boehler speaks about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2020
( Photo: Alex Brandon/AP Photo/ File )
Boehler, who is Jewish who was Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's college roommate, thanked Trump for "the opportunity and honor to serve you and our great nation." In a tweet on the X he wrote: "There is nothing more important than bringing Americans home. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, there will finally be action and consequences. We will BRING THEM HOME." There are still 101 hostages both living and dead in Gaza, including American citizens.
Boehler, 45, was born in Albany, New York, to Jill and Richard Boehler. He founded Rubicon Founders, a health care investment company. Today he lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife Shira and their four children, where they are active in the local Jewish community.
He is considered someone who expresses a firm voice in his support for Israel, and since October 7, 2023, he has expressed his views many times in the media. After the Hezbollah pager attack and the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Boehler even expressed hope that the developments would lead to the "Abraham Accords on steroids."
"Israel's effort is amazing, and Nasrallah was perhaps the most important person they could eliminate," he said at the time. "They blew their brains out and maybe we shouldn't use that term because it's a bit literal. They also helped the Lebanese government by eliminating Hezbollah." .
Boehler also attacked President Joe Biden for having a "double standard" when he demanded a cease-fire in Gaza. "This is unfair and unprecedented. We need to remember who our allies are. These are not Hamas terrorists, these are Israel and the modern Arab states," he said.
In an opinion piece he published on the news website The Hill, Boehler called for a stronger U.S. position in efforts to bring home the American hostages, including a military raid by U.S. commando forces in Gaza. "The Biden administration has reverted to a philosophy of hostage rescues that sees a military operation as a last resort. This approach cedes the upper hand to hostage takers, who feel emboldened to capture Americans with little fear of paying for it with their lives," he wrote.
"American servicemembers are more than equipped to pull off a rescue. In the wake of the failed mission to rescue Americans held hostage by Iran in 1980, U.S. Special Operations teams were rebuilt to achieve what President Jimmy Carter’s aborted raid could not," he also wrote. "Today, U.S. special operators have a strong track record of successfully infiltrating hostile environments to rescue hostages. Those averse to an American military presence inside Gaza must remember that a single, surgical raid is not the same thing as a protracted U.S. military presence."
Boehler previously served as CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a new federal agency created during Trump's first term to manage the U.S. government's international investments, which closed in 2021. Trump also appointed him to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
But his relationship with the Trump family began long before that, when he was the roommate of Kushner, the son-in-law of the president-elect, in the University of Pennsylvania dorms.
When Kushner took on the unofficial role of designing the White House's national strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in Trump's first term, he appointed Boehler to head a task force to streamline testing at the federal level. But Boehler, who came with a background in the private sector and did not hold a medical degree, was then criticized for his performance.
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His team received $100 million to build a national strategy, but the effort was not completed, partly due to political claims that the pandemic would mainly affect "blue" countries, i.e. democracies. His critics claimed that his team estimated that the pandemic would cause more damage to those countries, so it may not have been urgent for the Trump administration to develop a comprehensive national plan to fight the corona.
In addition, his team purchased a million defective corona tests from a company that misspelled its name on the invoice. Criticism against Kushner then focused on his favoring private sector figures like Boehler over government medical experts. The White House denied the claims, saying that the administration worked together to advance the common goal.