The man named as President George W. Bush’s new homeland security adviser is a veteran prosecutor who helped promote the Administration’s legislation to grant immunity to telecommunications companies who took part in its surveillance programs.
Kenneth L. Wainstein, who currently heads the Justice Department’s anti-terrorism efforts, will coordinate efforts “to ensure that we continue to make progress on combating terrorism, securing our borders and strengthening our emergency preparedness,” Bush said in a statement.
Wainstein’s naming came one day after Newsweek reported that the Bush administration had been rejected by several higher-profile choices. The top homeland security post has been vacant since the January departure of Frances Fragos Townsend, who held it for three and a half years.
According to Newsweek, “among those who have turned down the job—or made clear they weren’t interested in replacing Townsend—are retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, former chief of U.S. Central Command, and retired Adm. James Loy, former Coast Guard commandant and deputy homeland security secretary, according to three sources knowledgeable about the issue who, like others quoted in this article, asked for anonymity when discussing White House personnel moves. (Neither Abizaid nor Loy responded to requests for comment.)
“The sources said most of the top candidates the White House contacted expressed little interest in signing on so close to the end of President Bush’s second term. ‘It’s a friggin’ embarrassment,’ said one source who is involved in the recruitment process. The source noted that Townsend announced her resignation last November but didn’t leave the post until January—in part to give the president plenty of time to find a replacement.”
Wainstein, in his Justice Department post, oversaw efforts to bring Bush’s controversial warrantless domestic wiretapping program under the auspices of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Critics have charged the wiretap program launched by Bush after the September 11 attacks was illegal because it lacked court oversight.
Like his predecessor, Wainstein has worked on both sides of the aisle - he was employed by the late Kentucky Democrat Rep. Carl D. Perkins before graduating from law school. Like Townsend, he also began his career as an assistant prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
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