Joe adds Bam aide Rice to WH team

Susan Rice has been tapped for a return to the White House, as director of President-elect Joe Biden’s Domestic Policy Council.

Rice, 56, was passed over by Biden as his running mate earlier this year amid chatter that she was very much in the mix.

Rice (above) held the more prestigious post of national security adviser for President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017, which came with a West Wing corner office diagonally across from the Oval Office.

The Domestic Policy Council occupies less-coveted space on the top floor of the West Wing and typically is headed by people who are not widely known to the public. The current officeholder is Brooke Rollins.

Rice’s stature, however, will boost the council’s profile as Biden tries to push a US transition from oil to green power while increasing taxes on the wealthy, despite a narrowly divided Congress.

Rice’s government experience is mostly in foreign affairs and national security, rather than domestic policy, but she worked closely with Biden during his vice presidency, often sitting in the Oval Office during meetings with Obama.

Her role will revive focus on Obama-era controversies, including her 2012 remarks falsely describing Muslim outrage over a viral video as the reason for a terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She was UNambassador at the time.

After she left office, Rice was assailed by some Republicans for “unmasking” the identity of people linked to President Trump who were named in foreign intelligence reports.