Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.

His involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration led to his conviction in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress.

During George W. Bush's first term, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs.

Abrams led the 1998 Project for the New American Century (PNAC) letter demanding the removal of Saddam Hussein as a primary policy goal.

[12] He practiced law in New York in the summers for his father, and then at Breed, Abbott & Morgan from 1973 to 1975 and with Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand[broken anchor] from 1979 to 1981.

His nomination to Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs was unanimously approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 17, 1981.

[15] Abrams was Reagan's second choice for the position; his first nominee, Ernest W. Lefever, had been rejected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 5, 1981.

[16] According to an article in The Washington Post, in a 1984 appearance on the program Nightline, Abrams clashed with Aryeh Neier,[17] the executive director of Human Rights Watch[18] and with the leader of Amnesty International, over the Reagan administration's foreign policies.

They accused him of covering up atrocities committed by the military forces of U.S.-backed governments, including those in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and the rebel Contras in Nicaragua.

"[19] In an October 1981 memo, weeks prior to his confirmation in the Senate, Abrams asserted, "human rights is at the core of our foreign policy.

This theory fit neatly into the Cold War presumptions that framed Reagan's foreign policy and allowed the administration to rationalize supporting murderous regimes so long as they were anti-Communists.

Thirty years later, Ríos Montt was found guilty of overseeing a campaign of mass murder and torture of indigenous people, genocide, in Guatemala.

[33] Guided by the new provisions of the modified Boland Amendment, Abrams flew to London in August 1986 and met secretly with Bruneian defense minister General Ibnu to solicit a $10-million contribution from the Sultan of Brunei.

[34] In 1991, Abrams admitted that he knew more than he acknowledged in his congressional testimony, cooperated with Walsh and entered into a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress.

[43] Abrams was appointed special assistant to the President and the NSC's senior director for Near East and North African Affairs on December 2, 2002.

[44] Human rights groups and commentators expressed disquiet over his White House appointment owing to his disreputable conduct and conviction in the Iran–Contra affair investigation and his role in overseeing the Reagan administration's foreign policy in Latin America.

[47] The Intercept has reported that Abrams had a key role[48] in disrupting a peace plan proposed by Iran, right after the U.S. invasion to Iraq in 2003.

[50] Abrams accompanied Condoleezza Rice as a primary adviser on her visits to the Middle East in late July 2006 in the course of discussions relating to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Abrams condemned Obama's decision not to block a UN resolution criticizing Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Holocaust Memorial Council and maintained a CFR blog called "Pressure Points" about U.S. foreign policy and human rights.

This came two days after American recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president, thus advocating for regime change in Venezuela.

The coalition involves Morgan Ortagus, a former State Department official, Randy Scheunemann, a neocon lobbist and former head of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Doug Feith, a former Defense Department planner for the Iraq War, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

[5] Abrams originally opposed Trump's candidacy for president, writing an op-ed in The Weekly Standard titled "When You Can't Stand Your Candidate.