The Department of Homeland Security said today that reports on antiwar groups gathered by John Towery, an undercover Army spy in Washington State, did not make their way into DHS intelligence data banks.

The White House confirmed this afternoon it was withdrawing Phil Mudd from Senate consideration to be the Department of Homeland Security's intelligence chief.

Mudd, a career CIA employee who is currently the head of FBI counterterrorism, said the choice was his.

(For a fuller analysis of this case, see "Writing Was on the Wall Before DHS Intel Nominee Withdrew.")

Saying she still has no idea who sent her a box of dead fish, former top homeland security bioweapons official Maureen McCarthy says she has resigned from the department and begun legal action to clear her name.

Occasionally breaking into tears during a 45-minute telephone interview, McCarthy called her resignation "involuntary" and said she had suffered severe financial distress since being suspended without pay in February over the incident.

It looks like Maureen McCarthy is dead in the water, at least for the moment.

McCarthy, the DHS bioweapons official who caused a minor sensation earlier this month when she brought a mystery fish and white powder to her downtown office, is "on leave for awhile," according to a woman answering the phone in her office today.

Asked when she might return, the woman in her office, who did not identify herself, said, "We really don't know."

Maureen McCarthy certainly knows the difference between a prank and an anthrax attack, but she's getting a terrific ribbing about leaving a package of a dead fish and white powder in her car parked under a ventilation shaft in a Homeland Security Department garage.

CIA legend Charles E. Allen is departing the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 20, according to a colleague, drawing an end to a 50-year career in government intelligence work.

"Charlie," as he is universally known, joined the CIA in 1958 and spent the next 47 years climbing the ladder through a variety of analytical and managerial roles, culminating in his appointment as the agency's assistant director for collection.

In 2005 he joined DHS with the title of chief intelligence officer, the department's first, reporting directly to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He is also its undersecretary for intelligence and analysis.

A source close to Allen, 72, said he would be retiring Jan. 20 and immediately report back to the CIA for its 90-day retirement debriefing process. He disclosed the news to his staff.

DHS spokesman William R. Knocke initially said he was not aware of Allen's retirement plans, but late Friday confirmed his departure on Jan. 20.

"Every American has benefited from Charlie's remarkable service, and we all owe him a deep debt of gratitude,"  Knocke said in a statement.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., called Allen "an unsung American hero."
 
"Although he will be returning to the CIA, his departure from DHS is a great loss," said Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in a statement.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. who chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, also praised Allen.

"Charlie Allen was legendary at the CIA, and his extensive experience proved invaluable in putting DHS's Intelligence & Analysis function on the map," Harman said.

"Now that the office is established, his successor needs to do some heavy lifting to ensure real participation by state and local personnel and far better two-way information sharing." 

In Dec. 2007 Chertoff awarded Allen, a native of North Carolina, the Secretary's Gold Medal, DHS' top employee award.

Lieberman said the nation is safer because of Allen's work as DHS intelligence chief.

"Our nation is more secure today as a result of his lifetime of service," Lieberman said. "He ... leaves the (intelligence) division in excellent readiness for his successor. I wish him the best of luck and warmest regards for the future."

But John Rollins, the first chief of staff of intelligence under DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, said Allen's legacy would be mixed.

"In all fairness, Charlie inherited an organization lacking focus, personnel, and resources," Rollins said.

But "many detractors will point to the Office of Intelligence's inability to provide timely and relevant terrorism related information to state, local and private sector entities."

"With that said," Rollins added, "my biggest concern is the office's continued lack of progress in cultivating and assessing domestic threat information. As the primary customer and contributor to DHS' mission, my hope is that individuals with state, local, and private sector experience will assume senior leadership positions in the Department, thus improving the quality of the Office of Intelligence's products and services."

The Great Mentioner is busy, busy, busy these days, feeding the media frenzy for names of people "under consideration," as they say, for top positions in the Obama administration - including the spy agencies.

The Wall Street Journal's estimable Siobhan Gorman weighed in Tuesday with her own interesting mentionables to lead the CIA and the National Intelligence Directorate, making the point that none of them could be accused of palling around with terrorists.

Bill Ayers, in other words, is not on the list.

"Most of those being discussed as candidates for director of national intelligence and director of the CIA have staked out a middle ground between safeguarding civil liberties and aggressively pursuing nontraditional adversaries,"  wrote Gorman, singling out former CIA official John Brennan as a leading candidate to return to the spy agency as its boss.

"Mr. Brennan is a leading contender for one of the two jobs, say some advisers. He declined to comment on personnel matters. Gen. James L. Jones, a former North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander; Thomas Fingar, the chief of analysis for the [national] intelligence director; Joan A. Dempsey, who served in top intelligence and Pentagon posts; former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, who served on the 9/11 Commission; and [California Democratic Rep. Jane] Harman have also been mentioned. Ms. Harman has also been cited as a potential secretary of homeland security."

Liberals would swoon over Fingar, I suspect. As head of State Department intelligence in the first Bush administration, he was the only intelligence official who called it right on Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. And he oversaw the writing of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program that many credit - or blame - for blunting what seemed like an imminent Bush administration attack on Iran.  

None of the others mentioned are likely to upset Obamamaniacs too much, either.

But Brennan shouldn't be a slam dunk, caution some intelligence insiders, who say Brennan's operational dossier is too thin for the post.

Brennan got the Terrorist Threat Analysis Center (now the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) up and running after 9/11, they acknowledge, but he wouldn't have gotten the job if he hadn't been then-CIA Director George Tenet's executive assistant. He has no counterterrorism field experience.

One CIA official who absolutely should be back in Washington running something, say some, is David Cohen, who left Langley after 9/11 to join the NYPD as Deputy Director for Intelligence. 
 
Cohen hates publicity. The NYPD's hiring statement was brief:

"From 1995 to 1997, Cohen directed the CIA's Directorate of Operations, where he oversaw the agency's worldwide operations, managed the CIA's global network of offices and personnel, and maintained agency relationships with foreign intelligence and security services. From 1991 to 1995, Cohen was deputy director of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, where he guided the agency's analysis program, which reviewed every political, economic, and military assessment prepared by the CIA for the President and his senior national security advisors. Cohen's career at the CIA was marked by his leadership in combating global terrorism, international organized crime, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

One intelligence insider said Cohen should replace Charlie Allen as chief of Information and Analysis (IA) at the Homeland Security Department.  When Allen came to DHS in  2005, he'd already spent a half century at CIA.

"Cohen has built the best homeland security Intel organization in the country" at the NYPD, this person said,  "much better than DHS/IA and comparable with both the DI and DO [the CIA's directorates of Intelligence and Operations] but at a localized level."

Many would agree.

UPI's Shaun Waterman reports:

A GOP lobbyist and fundraiser with close ties to the White House has quit a Homeland Security Department advisory committee following allegations of influence peddling and quid pro quo donations to the Bush presidential library.

Department spokeswoman Laura Keehner confirmed to United Press International that Stephen Payne was asked to resign after being surreptitiously videotaped by a British newspaper apparently offering to arrange meetings with senior administration officials in return for a six-figure fee, including a quarter-million-dollar donation to the library.

"The department asked him to step down" from his post on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, Keehner said, declining to comment on the reasons.