Bush homeland security adviser resigns (Fran Townsend) [View All]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - Fran Townsend, President Bush's top White House-based adviser on terrorism and homeland security, has resigned, it was announced Monday.


President Bush said in a statement that Townsend "has ably guided the Homeland Security Council. She has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans."




Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_terrorism_adviser_3

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Interesting blurb from NYT 12/04:

In addition, the White House did not consult with the one person in the West Wing who knew the most about Mr. Kerik's background, Frances Townsend, because Ms. Townsend, President Bush's adviser on homeland security and a former federal prosecutor in New York, was under consideration for the position herself, said the official, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Those problems, law enforcement officials and Republicans said, were just two of the factors that led to the collapse of the Kerik nomination and surprised a White House focused on changing more than half the cabinet.

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/politics/15home.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A skillful survivor

~snip~

Townsend's career began as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney's office, but it took off when she moved to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, where she began prosecuting corporate and mob cases for Rudolph Giuliani. Comey, a young prosecutor there, remembers the disappointment of some of Townsend's witnesses when he was asked to take over one of her Mafia cases. "You know," he says, laughing, "they were all depressed when I became their handler, and I don't think it's because I'm any less attractive. It's just that she had a great rapport with people--great people skills."

~snip~
Another of Townsend's mentors is former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who encouraged her to accept a sensitive Justice job that turned into a hornet's nest. In 1998, at Reno's request, Townsend became the head of the powerful Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. The OIPR enforces a controversial statute known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which the FBI or other agencies can obtain special wiretaps and other search and surveillance warrants to track spies and terrorists. A FISA court meets in secret to approve requests for the wiretaps and warrants. Since FISA warrants are intended primarily to gather intelligence, not prosecute criminals, there was tension and confusion at the time over whether the information they produced could be shared with agents or prosecutors working on criminal cases. Townsend found herself in the middle of that debate over how much of a "wall" should exist between intelligence-gatherers and prosecutors, and her tenure at OIPR remains controversial today. Many FBI agents say Townsend was crucial in obtaining FISA wiretaps, especially during the period of heightened terrorism concerns around the new millennium. But many prosecutors felt that Townsend was less than helpful in making sure the FBI shared wiretap data with lawyers at Main Justice when there was evidence of criminal activity. Townsend believed that the FISA court and its chief judge at the time, Royce Lamberth, would refuse to approve search warrants and wiretaps if they believed too much information sharing was going on and if prosecutors were controlling or directing the intelligence-gathering efforts. One knowledgeable source backs her up and says Townsend "cared very much about following procedures." But others suspect an ulterior motive. Some Justice Department prosecutors felt Townsend wanted to keep the wall up because it kept prosecutors out of national security investigations, leaving more authority in the hands of Townsend and friendly bureau agents.

~snip~


Several Reno aides say the attorney general relied too heavily on Townsend. "There's no single person that Janet Reno had a bigger blind spot for than her," says a Justice official. In fact, some of Reno's senior aides distrusted Townsend so much, sources say, that one asked that Reno's confidential assistant inform him if Town-send violated protocol and approached Reno directly.

Some senior FBI officials blame Lamberth, not Townsend, for the FISA problems. Townsend says she repeatedly tried to persuade the judge to lower the "wall" but knew she had crossed the line when in November 2000, the FISA court held a rare meeting of the full court to discuss "wall" -related issues. "The chief judge was so annoyed with me," says Townsend, "that he wouldn't permit me personally to attend, because I had pushed so hard against the restrictions they had imposed." Others say the real root of Lamberth's anger at Townsend was the false information given by the FBI in dozens of wiretap applications to the FISA court. Lamberth declined to comment. But he told Reno's successor, Ashcroft, that he had lost faith in Townsend. Knowing she was in an untenable situation, Townsend says, she told Ashcroft's then acting deputy, Robert Mueller, that she was willing to step aside. Townsend says Mueller consulted with Ashcroft and told her that she was out. Mueller, who is now the FBI director, declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that Townsend had "voluntarily moved" during the Bush transition. "Fran is a true professional," Mueller said, "with extensive experience in addressing terrorism. As such, she brings experienced leadership to the war on terror."

~snip~

Others in the counterterrorism community took notice. Barely two years later, Townsend was on her way back to the top. As National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's counterterrorism deputy, Townsend beefed up White House involvement in security planning for the Olympic Games in Athens and made several trips to Saudi Arabia. "She's been very important on issues of terrorist financing," Rice told U.S. News. Rice said Townsend also played a key "debottlenecking" role in Iraq, to "make sure people were getting the kind of merged intelligence that was needed."

a total of 4 pages read more:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/041206/6townsend_3.htm