Kerik's Position Was Untenable, Bush Aide Says

New York Times ^ | 12/12/04 | ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC LIPTON

[wagglebee]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - President Bush readily accepted Bernard B. Kerik's decision to withdraw his nomination as homeland security secretary after the White House quickly concluded on Friday evening that it would be impossible for him to win confirmation for a post that supervises enforcement of the nation's immigration laws if he had had immigration problems in his own household, White House officials said on Saturday.

Only hours earlier on Friday, Mr. Kerik informed the administration that, contrary to assurances he had given the White House counsel's office before the president nominated him on Dec. 3, a nanny he had employed appeared to have been in the country illegally and that he had failed to pay taxes on her behalf. He told President Bush in a brief phone call about 8:30 p.m. Friday of his decision to withdraw, said a White House official.

White House officials were clearly annoyed at Mr. Kerik for not determining the nanny's immigration status prior to this week, but said they had no evidence he had sought to mislead them. "It was Kerik's screw up, it was that simple," the official said. "But it's a mistake you can't tolerate with someone who has oversight for immigration."

The nanny Mr. Kerik had employed, who has not yet been identified, left the country about two weeks ago, just prior to the announcement of his nomination, a former New York City official said on Saturday, adding that her departure had been planned for at least two months.

At a news conference today, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor and now a business associate of Mr. Kerik's, called the discovery "an embarrassment to me and to Bernie and to those of us that supported him because we should have disclosed this, we should have found out earlier." But he said he thought that the issue of the status of any domestic help was "the second or third question" that White House officials asked Mr. Kerik in the preliminary vetting they do of all potential nominees, "and he said he didn't believe he had a problem here."

Mr. Kerik's withdrawal was the first major blunder in the administration's process of assembling its second-term cabinet, but not a new experience for Mr. Bush's team. Four years ago, when Mr. Bush nominated Linda Chavez as labor secretary, it was discovered after the initial vetting process that she had given shelter to, and employed, an illegal immigrant. At the time, Mr. Bush's aides were outraged and promised to change their methods for reviewing potential nominees, but on Saturday several officials said that because Mr. Bush wanted to make his decisions speedily their initial review had been quick.

Mr. Kerik's housekeeper situation was only the latest question to be revealed about the nominee. A series of critical news reports about questionable actions had begun to surface about Mr. Kerik, threatening to turn his Senate confirmation into a lengthy embarrassment for the administration. The reports looked at Mr. Kerik's use of city personnel while in office, potential conflicts between his business life and the role of the homeland security department, and events growing out of his personal financial difficulties several years ago.

One Democratic Senate staff member, who had been following the nomination process closely and asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the matter, said he was convinced that the nanny question was not the sole reason that Mr. Kerik had dropped out. "Multiple media organizations were pursuing multiple stories," that would be potentially damaging to Mr. Kerik, he said. Because many of these questions had not yet been answered by the administration, the staff member said, "fundamentally, he was a bad pick."

The staff member added: "The process worked here."

Another Senate staff member, who works for a Democrat on the Government Affairs Committee, which oversees the homeland security secretary nomination process, said that from the start, there was a sense that the White House had not properly examined Mr. Kerik's background.

"They rushed this nomination and did not look as closely as they should have," he said.

Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and the chairwoman of the Government Affairs Committee, said that among the possible candidates to succeed Mr. Kerik, at least in her mind, would be Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, or Asa Hutchinson, the assistant secretary at homeland security. Other names mentioned on Saturday included Frances Fragos Townsend, the domestic security adviser; Joe Allbaugh, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who now runs his own Washington-based consulting firm; and Michael O. Leavitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Those options had apparently also been considered before Mr. Kerik was nominated.

"I am confident that President Bush will move swiftly to find a replacement for Bernie Kerik," Senator Collins said in a statement on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Kerik emerged from his two-story yellow house in Franklin Lakes, N.J., and spoke to reporters in his driveway, flanked by two security guards. He said he believed he could have made it through the confirmation process, but decided the process would be a burden to the administration.

"It would have been messy, ugly and an embarrassment to President Bush, so I withdrew my name," he said. He added, "I think when you're in a position like this, the press, the media and all your enemies try to find things that a person has done wrong. But I don't think that there would have been problem with the nomination."

He refused to disclose the name or nationality of the nanny, and would not say how long she had worked for him or provide any other details about her.

"Out of respect for her privacy, I'm not going to go into details except to say that she is a good woman," Mr. Kerik said.

A former city official who asked not to be identified said Mr. Kerik had acknowledged that he had said "no" when the White House originally asked if he had a nanny problem. According to the former official, Mr. Kerik now says that he did not pay enough attention to the details of the nanny's hiring and that he did not realize until the last few days that she had been in the country illegally.

Mr. Giuliani, who had spoken on Mr. Kerik's behalf to the White House, said he felt partly responsible for what had happened.

"I wish for everybody's sake, including mine, that this had been focused on earlier," said Mr. Giuliani, who brought Mr. Kerik to prominence as his commissioner of both corrections and police. "Then you would never have gotten to this position. I take my share of responsibility for that."

Mr. Giuliani said he never gave the White House any broad assurances that Mr. Kerik's background was entirely clean, saying that the president's staff was going through its normal process of evaluating a cabinet nominee.

"I never had a conversation in which I vouched for him or was asked about this issue or any other issue," Mr. Giuliani said. "Obviously, everyone would have preferred if this was discovered earlier," he said

Both Mr. Giuliani and the White House official said the administration had reviewed any potential nanny problems as part of a full vetting process of Mr. Kerik prior to the confirmation hearings.

"We went through a full vetting process that includes everything that could be of issue," the official said. "I believe it was only when he started going through the specific compliance process that the problem became a little more acute and that's when he brought it to us."

Asked if the White House felt it had been misled by Mr. Kerik, the official said, "I wouldn't characterize it in that way."

The official bristled when asked whether the White House regretted listening to Mr. Giuliani.

"There's a misperception out there," the official said. "Giuliani was obviously a strong supporter of Bernie Kerik, but we don't make decisions based on recommendations or the faith of other people's word. We do our own independent vetting and selection process."

Many people, the official added, had made recommendations on behalf of Mr. Kerik. "But the president had his own independent relationship with Kerik that had formed over the last several years and he made his own decision," the official said.

Mr. Giuliani said the White House had not expressed any anger to him or to Mr. Kerik.

Mr. Kerik, who said he had first uncovered the problem as he and his lawyers went through the paperwork required for Senate confirmation of his job on Friday, had been in contact earlier in the day with the White House counsel's office. He later called Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, and the phone call with Mr. Bush was arranged.

"We are disappointed because President Bush believes he was the right person for the challenges our country faces," the White House official said. "He also respects his decision. Unfortunately, these things happen during a confirmation process."

The withdrawal of Mr. Kerik was a disappointment not only for the former police commissioner and the former mayor, but also for elected officials from New York who thought Mr. Kerik would be attuned to the needs of the city.

"I am disappointed that Bernie Kerik will not be homeland security secretary," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York. "Few have better understood the needs of New York and of our nation when it comes to doing more to keep us safe from terrorism here at home. I hope the president will nominate someone who exhibits Bernie's deep commitment to keeping New York - and America - safer from terrorism."

In the three years since Mr. Kerik left city government, he has made millions of dollars in the private sector, much of it working for companies that do business with the Department of Homeland Security, and which are seeking to expand their sales. His single biggest source of income was Taser International, an Arizona-based manufacturer of stun guns that added Mr. Kerik to its board and gave him stock options that Mr. Kerik has since sold, earning $6.2 million in pre-tax profits.

Most of Taser's sales come from local and state police departments, but it has also been trying to sell its shock guns to Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Kerik also has served on the board of CamelBak, a company based in Petaluma, Calif., that sells water supply backpacks to the United States military and law enforcement branches, including the border patrol.

Mr. Giuliani said he was convinced that these and other business ties to homeland security companies were not a factor in Mr. Kerik's decision to back out. Mr. Giuliani said that the effort to collect a past due debt on a condominium he owned in East Rutherford, N.J. - including, apparently, an arrest warrant that was issued for Mr. Kerik in 1998, based on the outstanding condominium fees - also did not play a role.

"That was a civil proceeding that was resolved. That fits into the category of something that you can easily explain," he said. The arrest warrant was first reported by Newsweek.

"Whenever this happens, there is always the idea that it must be something else, it must be something else," Mr. Giuliani said. "But that is when there is not a good reason. This is a good reason. Who would actually think he could go forward with this issue?"

He added that Mr. Kerik, who spent about half an hour on Saturday outside his house putting up Christmas decorations, including miniature Santas and wire reindeer of white lights, would do "great things" in the future.

"This is a sad day for him and his family," he said. "But we all have complex lives. Sometimes it trips you up."

White House officials said that in their initial review of nominees, they run down a list of questions involving potentially embarrassing problems: legal difficulties, the status of household workers, past divorces or relationships and tax problems, among other issues. "We try to go through public records," said one senior official. "But without guidance from the nominee, there is only so much you can do."

Mr. Kerik's nomination had not even been formally presented to the Senate; it had not planned to hold hearings on Mr. Kerik until late January or perhaps early February. So the formal vetting process, particular for the Senate, had only just begun.

[CTpatriot]

Hmmm... I guess that would make President Bush a "power elite". He absolutely adores illegal aliens, and wants more and more to enter our country. In fact, he wants nothing to do with enforcing the preexisting immigration laws, for that would make it tougher for them to arrive and never leave. Ah yes, "homeland security", brought to you by the White House.

Clinton sold our country out with espionage and stolen military secrets. Mr. Bush is systematically selling us out economically, allowing our country to be overun by illegal aliens, and letting it bleed to death.

[oceanview]

do you think people who hire landscapers are inquiring as to their immigration status? are all those people criminals, if their landscapers are illegal aliens?

[oceanview]

many american households where both mother and father work full time jobs, have a babysitter that they pay to watch their children.

[ex-snook]

"For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would turn their kids over to a stranger who cannot even speak English. "

I'll taka a shot. Their careers are more important than their kids?

[clyde260]

Well said! Bravo!

[skip_intro]

do you think people who hire landscapers are inquiring as to their immigration status? are all those people criminals, if their landscapers are illegal aliens?

I don't know. Does the landscaper live in your house?

[skip_intro]

I think that it's safe to say that the President of the US is a power elite. It kind of goes with the job.

[Capt. Tom]

You would have thought the Bushies would have learned their lesson. This numb scull nomination is something I would expect from the dumb Republicans but not from the Bushies.

Source FAIR
Linda Chavez, syndicated columnist and former Chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission under President Reagan, withdrew her nomination for Secretary of Labor in the Bush administration after a media firestorm erupted over her harboring an illegal alien during the early 1990s.

Chavez’s saga was similar to that of Clinton nominee for attorney general in 1993, Zoë Baird. Baird had employed an illegal alien nanny and housekeeper without paying taxes.

Chavez claimed that her situation was different, in that she was sheltering a battered woman who had fled her abusive husband in Guatemala.

After initially maintaining that she had not known that her “houseguest,” Marta Mercado, was illegal, Chavez admitted in her withdrawal news conference that “I think I always knew that she was here illegally.” Chavez continued to assert, however, that Mercado was not an employee. But INS officials told the media that even if Mercado were not an employee, her presence in Chavez’s house constituted the crime of “concealing, harboring, or shielding from detection” an illegal alien.

Chavez’s nomination was ultimately derailed because she tried to conceal her relationship with Mercado. Bush transition team officials were initially surprised by the story, which Chavez had concealed during the “vetting,” or screening process used for Cabinet nominees. A Wall Street Journal story on the day she withdrew probably sealed her nomination’s fate; the story revealed that Chavez’s conversation with a neighbor of hers was under investigation by the FBI. Chavez had called the neighbor, to whom she hired Mercado out, hoping to “refresh” her recollection of Mercado’s non-employment.

The controversy, which lasted only a few days, was highlighted by the irony of Chavez’s previous criticisms of Zoe Baird. In 1993, during the Zoë Baird controversy, Chavez said on national television that “I think most of the American people were upset during the Zoë Baird nomination that she had hired an illegal alien. That was what upset them - more than the fact that she did not pay Social Security taxes.” Chavez’s comments came the same year that Mercado was living in her home, doing domestic work.

[txrangerette]

Sorry for the paragraphing problem in my original post.

I for one do not yet know if Mr. Kerik lied. How is it that everyone on this thread seems to know it?

I heard things that leave me open-minded to the facts, whatever they turn out to be. I heard she had phony but convincing documents of her status. I heard his wife hired her when he was in Iraq training the police force. If any of that is true, then I don't conclude that he lied, but that at a minimum he and his vetters failed to do a decent job in nailing down any possible problem.

If it is proven to me that he lied, I will accept it but not until. The man risked his life in Iraq trying to help America and the Iraqi people. He did not have to to that. For that alone, he should not be treated like pond scum, in my opinion.

[oceanview]

what difference does it make. and even I I asked that person, and they produced a fake SS card or a fake green card - what am I supposed to do, polygraph them?

[skip_intro]

No, but you're supposed to pay their SS taxes.

[Moose4]

Yup. Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood were the first two Klowntoon AG appointees. Janet "the Arsonist" Reno was choice #3.

}:-)4

[oceanview]

fair enough, Kerik should certainly have paid those taxes if he owed them. but he could have done that, without being disqualified. Kerik is not short of cash.

[heye2monn]

Excellent answer. Either mom (or dad) should stay home and focus on the kids. If not, why have the (lonely) kids in the first place?

[heye2monn]

Yes. Sad but true.

[oceanview]

what really scares me about this thing, a bigger issue then the Kerik pull out, is now blood is in the water. The administration is seen as having less of a stomach for a fight like this. Now, I honestly think we might lose Rumsfeld over this armored Humvee thing. and when it comes time for SCOTUS nominees, the Dems and the media will know that the slighest issue will disqualify any candidate.

[anniegetyourgun]

"They rushed this nomination and did not look as closely as they should have," he said. "

And oddly enough, you never heard any D's saying this when Clinton nominated those who had to back out.

[Dat Mon]

"Who could have imagined that he would be that stupid and character flawed?"

You could infer from this that:

a) Rudy is already on the short list for 2008

b) Rudy personally vouched for Kerik...thus shortcircuiting the normal upfront screening.

c) Kerik is street smart tough, a bit of a hustler, and in way over his head politically.

[skip_intro]

Kerik should certainly have paid those taxes if he owed them

And that's my point. Of course he should have, just like Linda Chavez should have. The Zoe Baird fiasco under Clinton made it clear to everyone that if these people work directly for you, you have to pay their taxes. But that makes hiring them more expensive, so they don't do it.

As far as landscapers go, if I hire a landscaping company, or eat at a restaurant, it's the company that's required to check immigration status and pay all required taxes on it's employees.

Unlike the people in DC, I'm not rich enough to have my own collection of personal servants.

[the invisib1e hand]

...whatever. It's over.

Next!