Kerik controversy has Bush looking for a new secretary

Link: Security Beat

The White House has renewed its search for a Secretary of Homeland Security after Bernard Kerik -- the candidate President Bush thought ideal -- withdrew his name from the position amid numerous allegations.

"I owe the president ... a great apology that this may have caused him and his administration a big distraction," Kerik told The Associated Press.

Kerik said he had discovered recently that he did not pay all required taxes for a family nanny-housekeeper and that the woman may have been in the country illegally.

On Saturday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been mentioned as a possible choice, expressed no interest in the job. "I am not a candidate," he told reporters in New York.

Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who heads the Senate committee that will take the nomination, said two "terrific choices" would be Asa Hutchinson, the department's undersecretary for border and transportation security, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

Among the names that had been circulating for the post before Kerik's selection on Dec. 3 were Joe Allbaugh, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; White House Homeland security adviser Fran Townsend; and former Utah governor and now head of the Environmental Protection Agency Mike Leavitt, who is out of the running after being named head of the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday.

Meanwhile, questions continued over how the White House review process could have missed the kind of "nanny problem" that scuttled high-level appointments in both the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration.

Since his nomination was announced, other issues have surfaced indicating that Kerik's confirmation by the Senate might not have gone smoothly.
Newsweek uncovered that an arrest warrant was issued for Kerik as recently as six years ago relating to unpaid bills on his condominium in New Jersey.

The New York Daily News reports that Kerik had illegally accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts while a public official. And the Washington Post reports that nine employees of the hospital Kerik worked at providing security in Saudi Arabia accused him of using his policing powers to pursue the personal agenda of his immediate boss.