White House domestic security aide resigns
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush's top aide for domestic security and counter-terrorism, Fran Townsend, is resigning, in the latest high-profile exit from the administration, the White House said Monday.
Bush paid tribute to Townsend in a statement, saying she had offered wise counsel on how to best protect Americans from terrorism. In her three-and-a-half years on the job, the US mainland has not been attacked.
"She has been a steady leader in the effort to prevent and disrupt attacks and to better respond to natural disasters," the president said.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Townsend was looking for private sector opportunities.
Perino gave no details on who would take the job next, though said Townsend would stay on to ease in her successor, and would remain in place throughout the holiday season until early January.
She dismissed the notion that the departures of a flurry of top aides meant Bush was limping to the finish line of his presidency in January 2009.
In recent months, the president has lost long-term confidante and State Department public diplomacy czar Karen Hughes, spokesman Tony Snow, and political guru Karl Rove.
In August, attorney general Alberto Gonzales, another longstanding close ally of Bush, bowed to pressure from Congress to resign after scandals placed a cloud over the Department of Justice.
Earlier departures included former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bush counselor Dan Bartlett, key national security aides J.D. Crouch and Meghan O'Sullivan, budget director Rob Portman, political director Sara Taylor, and Bush's legal counsel and failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.
Townsend had spoken previously with the president about her plans and informed senior staff Monday morning of her resignation, White House sources said.
Townsend, 45, had served as Bush's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism since May 2004, after a career as a government prosecutor in New York and then as a top intelligence official in the US Coast Guard.
Departures of senior aides are the rule in the waning days of every second term White House, when the US president's power ebbs and eyes turn to the next election.
