Bush’s domestic security advisor is latest to depart

Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush’s domestic security advisor, announced Monday that she was resigning -- the latest in a series of senior officials to leave the administration as the president juggles a still-full agenda.

Townsend, who began working for the government as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., rose over two decades and the administrations of four presidents to become a fixture in the Oval Office and on Sunday talk shows -- delivering confidential reports to the president and security warnings to the public as the domestic security threat evolved.

She gave no reason for her departure other than to say that she wanted to go into the private sector. In a handwritten letter she delivered to Bush on Nov. 6, Townsend said she was leaving with “a heavy heart” but had “decided to take a respite from public service.”

The president said in a statement Monday that Townsend had “played an integral role” in forming the administration’s anti-terrorism policies.

In recent months some of Bush’s closest aides -- including several who came to Washington with him nearly seven years ago -- have left or announced they would leave soon. Among them have been his longtime political advisor Karl Rove; Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor; Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales; and Karen Hughes, who preceded Bartlett as counselor and held several other key posts. Most recently Hughes had been the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.

With 14 months remaining in his second term and Democrats holding a majority in the House and Senate, Bush is struggling to fend off the appearance of a lame duck, insisting he will press ahead with domestic policy priorities and a foreign policy built around fighting terrorism abroad and bringing stability to Iraq and Afghanistan.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush had been able to find worthy substitutes, and she took issue with what she said was the “story line” that the president’s self-proclaimed “sprint to the finish” would be more difficult with such top aides as Townsend heading for the exits.

“Look at the people the president has been able to attract to the administration to work in the last little while: Fred Fielding, Ed Gillespie, Judge Mukasey,” she said. Fielding, a respected veteran Washington lawyer, joined the White House as Bush’s counsel earlier this year; Gillespie, a lobbyist and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, replaced Bartlett as the White House counselor; and Michael B. Mukasey, a retired federal judge in New York, is the new attorney general.

“We are confident that we will be able to find an individual of high caliber and talent and experience to be able to replace Frances Townsend,” said Perino, who stepped in to the press secretary job last spring, replacing Tony Snow.

White House officials would not speculate on potential replacements. Finding someone to move into a job with barely a year’s likely tenure may be difficult if Bush looks beyond his staff. Among those considered potential successors to Townsend are two senior White House national and domestic security experts, Juan Carlos Zarate and Joel Bagnal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used the announcement of Townsend’s resignation to call on Bush to “reassess his strategy on the war on terror and homeland security.”

Townsend was reportedly on the short list to become the nation’s second secretary of the Department of Homeland Security when Bernard Kerik withdrew his nomination three years ago.

She was raised in Wantagh, N.Y., She joined the U.S. attorney’s office in 1988 and prosecuted Mafia figures in New York while working for then-U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani. She moved to Washington during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and became a top advisor to Janet Reno, the attorney general during the Clinton administration.

She was the Coast Guard’s assistant commandant for intelligence when she became Bush’s deputy domestic security advisor during his first term. She has been his advisor for domestic security since May 2004.

james.gerstenzang@latimes.com

Times staff writer Josh Meyer contributed to this report.