Jofi Joseph, the White House policy wonk who was recently given the marching orders for his barrage of anonymous tweets attacking top aides of President Barack Obama, is of Indian descent.
Six months after he was born in West Germany, Joseph’s Indian parents moved to Muskegon, Michigan, where he attended school before graduating from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and entering Princeton University as a Truman scholar.
Very little of Joseph’s ethnicity was known till Muskegon Chronicle did reported that his parents were natives of India who moved to Michigan. Joseph graduated as the valedictorian of his Catholic high school in Muskegon.
Back in 1993, Joseph had told a Chronicle writer in an interview: “I really have a strong interest in Government and international affairs. It’s my commitment to public service. I want to make a difference in life, and the best way to do this is a career in this, helping to shape our nation and foreign policy.”
But his Twitter rants against some top Obama aides, by using a fake account, have put paid to his rising career graph.
The 40-year-old Joseph, appointed by President Obama as Director for Nonproliferation at the National Security Council, was in line for another key slot at the Pentagon until 10 days ago. That was when he was found to be the man behind the insulting tweets and he was sacked at once.
His venomous tweets did not spare even the likes of Valerie Jarett, a close friend and adviser of Obama. “I’m a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me,” commented one tweet.
He even took aim at National Security Adviser Susan Rice last June, when Obama named her for the top job. “What’s with the dominatrix-like black suit Susan Rice is wearing at this announcementIJ” Joseph had tweeted at the time, again anonymously.
While Joseph is a Democrat, who has earlier worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advising then-chairman Joseph Biden, his wife, Carolyn leddy, is a Republican staffer at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.