The Case Of The Disappearing Nominee

Officials at the White House and in the intelligence community are baffled and disquieted by the sudden withdrawal of the Obama administration's nominee for the top intelligence job at the Department of Homeland Security.

In late April, President Obama announced his intention to nominate Philip Mudd, a career CIA officer who since 2005 had been a top counterterrorism official at the FBI, to become homeland-security undersecretary for intelligence and analysis. Confirmation hearings—possibly by two overlapping Senate committees—were expected to start in the near future.

On Friday, however, the White House and Mudd both issued statements saying that Mudd had decided to withdraw his name from consideration. The announcements were made less than a day after the Associated Press ran a story reporting that Mudd was likely to face questions about his involvement in the CIA's controversial interrogation and detention programs, which have been terminated by Obama.

In a statement announcing his withdrawal, Mudd expressed concern that he could become a political liability. "If I continue to move forward, I will become a distraction to the president and his vital agenda," he wrote. Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said Obama had accepted Mudd's decision "with sadness and regret," adding: "The president believes that Phil Mudd would have been an excellent undersecretary for intelligence and analysis but understands his personal decision and the choice he has made."

Sean Smith, assistant secretary of homeland security for public affairs, said: "Phil Mudd would have been an outstanding undersecretary, and we are disappointed by his decision but accept it."

Two administration officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing a politically sensitive issue, said that Mudd was not pushed by the White House or other policymakers to withdraw from consideration for the job, which had previously been occupied by Charles Allen, himself a legendary former CIA officer.

The Homeland Security Department doesn't have a division specifically assigned to collect intelligence. The main responsibility of the office that Mudd would have led is to sort through dispatches from agencies with operatives in the field who do produce intelligence-related reporting—including such Homeland agencies as the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and various immigration agencies—looking for indications of possible terror threats to targets inside the United States.

It was not immediately clear where political opposition to Mudd's appointment was coming from. The Associated Press said Sen. Susan Collins, top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had said her staff would be examining Mudd's involvement in controversial CIA interrogations. But another GOP official on Capitol Hill, who also asked for anonymity, said that given congressional Republicans' well-publicized support for Bush-era CIA interrogation and detention policies, it was highly unlikely that any serious effort to block Mudd's nomination would have come from the GOP side of the aisle.

Congressional officials said that because his job would have involved both intelligence and homeland-security responsibilities, Mudd would almost certainly have had to appear at two confirmation hearings—one before the homeland-security committee, headed by conservative Democrat Joe Lieberman, and one before the Senate intelligence committee, headed by California's Dianne Feinstein. Some Democrats on both committees have been harsh critics of the CIA's interrogation and detention activities during the Bush administration, but it was not immediately clear whether any of those Democrats had expressed an intention, either to the White House or to Capitol Hill colleagues, to raise objections to Mudd's role in those matters.

The official Homeland Security Department statement  announcing Mudd's nomination to the post reported that between 2003 and 2005, he had been deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. That unit was in charge of creating and running the interrogation and detention programs—including the use of "harsh" interrogation techniques that critics described as "torture." The Obama administration has abandoned those techniques, which are now under intense investigation by Feinstein's Senate panel.

Mudd's career at the CIA was principally as an analyst—an expert who collates and evaluates intelligence reporting—rather than as a case officer or spy in the field. As deputy head of the counterterrorism unit, however, he almost certainly would have been directly involved in operational aspects of the agency's program to detain and question suspects using "enhanced interrogation techniques," according to three government officials.

Mudd is the third CIA official known to have been considered for a Senate-confirmable post in the Obama administration whose nomination failed to go forward because of apparent political concerns related to their involvement in or knowledge of Bush-era CIA interrogation and detention activities. Obama reportedly wanted to appoint as his CIA director John Brennan, a veteran agency official and early Obama campaign adviser. But Brennan withdrew his name from consideration after liberal bloggers criticized him for defending CIA personnel who carried out Bush policies. Brennan is now top the counterterrorism adviser at the White House—a post that does not require congressional approval.

After Brennan's candidacy for the CIA directorship imploded, some intelligence officials, as well as influential Capitol Hill Democrats, pushed for Obama to nominate as CIA chief the agency's deputy director, Steve Kappes. But as a senior official in the CIA's undercover division between 2002 and 2004, Kappes would have had some involvement in the agency's interrogation and detention programs; such concerns were apparently a factor in Kappes being passed over for nomination to the agency's top spot. Kappes remains the CIA's No. 2 under Washington elder statesman Leon Panetta, whom Obama ultimately tapped to head the agency.