Philippe Reines

Philippe I. Reines (born November 25, 1969) joined the State Department as a Senior Advisor to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was sworn into office in January 2009, and he was later promoted to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

Reines is currently a Managing Director at Beacon Global Strategies LLC, which he founded with partners Michael Allen, Jeremy Bash, and Andrew Shapiro in 2013.

Career

In its December 2009 profile of Hillary Clinton, Vogue magazine described him as Clinton's "Michael Clayton-esque image man and fixer." In March 2010, The Washington Post's WhoRunsGov included him in its Power 25: Press series, and in July 2010, Politico included Reines in their 50 Politicos to Watch list, categorizing him as a "fixer."

In 2009, Politico ran a scathing piece on March 24 blaming Reines for one of Clinton's early gaffes as Secretary of State, misspelling the Russian translation of the word "Reset" on a gag button presented to Clinton's Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Through January 2009, Reines served as Senior Advisor & Press Secretary for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the primary point of contact between Senator Clinton's official office and the national press corps, Reines served as one of Senator Clinton's primary spokesmen, and was responsible for many of her interviews and media appearances. In 2003, Reines helped orchestrate the media campaign and seven-month book tour that accompanied the release of Living History, Senator Clinton's bestselling memoir of her time in the White House.

Previously, Reines served as Communications Director for U.S. Representative Jane Harman (D-CA)

Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, Reines was a member of the 2000 Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign's rapid response operation. Reines remained involved in former Vice President Gore's public activities after Gore left office in 2001. He served as Al Gore's Teaching and Research Assistant for his "Covering National Affairs" course at the Columbia School of Journalism in the Spring of 2001. In December 2002 he contributed material for Gore's appearance on Saturday Night Live.

After the 2000 Presidential election was decided, Reines returned to New York and spent a year as Deputy Communications Director for the New York City Council before joining Speaker Peter Vallone's mayoral bid.

A New York City native, Reines earned his political science degree from Columbia University School of General Studies.

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, in addition to his role as a Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton, he served as a spokesman for Chelsea Clinton, traveling with her throughout the primaries.

In September 2012, Reines vigorously took issue with CNN over its use of Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens's diary, which CNN found at the site of an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi which killed the ambassador. CNN fired back by suggesting that the State Department was "attacking the messenger" because of "questions about why the State Department didn’t do more to protect Ambassador Stevens." Some media critics sided with CNN and questioned whether Reines' real grievance was indeed with CNN's disrespect for the privacy wishes of Stevens' family; BuzzFeed published an email exchange between Reines and Michael Hastings where the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State told Hastings to "Fuck off." Reines also took issue with a reporter's questions in December 2012, calling a Fox News correspondent's question about his boss "absolutely asinine."