Chief Aide Quits After Clashing With Moynihan

The chief aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) resigned Wednesday, five days after publicly contradicting the senator and accusing him of having given a direct order to bar a reporter from a news briefing.

Moynihan issued a statement saying he had “reluctantly agreed” to accept the resignation of Harrison (Lee) Rainie, a former newspaper reporter.

“He told me this morning that he felt it necessary to leave for personal and professional reasons,” Moynihan said in the statement. “He has wished me well and I return the sentiment.”

Rainie said in a statement: “There need be no mystery about this--the job was not nearly as satisfying as I hoped it would be nor was I as good at it as I hoped I would be.”

Appointed in March

Rainie, 35, was appointed in March as Moynihan’s administrative assistant and press secretary. He spent 13 years with the New York Daily News, most recently covering politics and Moynihan for the newspaper’s Washington bureau.

Rainie had a public confrontation with Moynihan on Friday over how reporter Douglas Turner of the Buffalo (N.Y.) News was excluded from a briefing on May 27.

That briefing was to release documents related to the Derrymore Foundation, a tax-exempt charitable foundation that Moynihan set up last year to disburse honoraria he receives over the federal limit of $30,040.