President’s Top Lawyer Is Leaving White House

President’s Top Lawyer Is Leaving White House
By JEFF ZELENY and PETER BAKER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/politics/14craig.html?th&emc=th


WASHINGTON — Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel, said Friday that he would resign at the beginning of next year, ending a sometimes tumultuous tenure as President Obama’s top lawyer after 10 months at the center of some of the toughest issues and stormiest internal debates that have confronted the administration.

The announcement was timed to coordinate with a Justice Department decision that five terrorism suspects held at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be taken to New York to face trial. That decision was a milestone in the effort led in part by Mr. Craig to figure out what to do with prisoners held for years without charges and then close Guantánamo by January.

In an interview, Mr. Craig sidestepped the question of whether he was being pushed to leave because of unhappiness within the White House over the handling of Guantánamo and other thorny issues involving interrogation and detention of terrorism suspects. Although he said last month that he had “no plans to leave whatsoever,” he said he had always intended to stay for just a year and would return to private practice.

But he alluded to the difficulties he encountered as he tried to navigate the political issues he inherited amid competing interests inside and outside government.

“It’s always a challenge to link up the White House Counsel’s Office to the other elements of the White House,” Mr. Craig said. He noted that his task as a lawyer under President Bill Clinton was to bring legal, political, legislative and outreach parts of the White House together. “That challenge continues.”

Mr. Craig was handed one of the most difficult portfolios in the West Wing. He drafted executive orders banning torture and ordering the Guantánamo prison closed within a year. Over the objections of the Central Intelligence Agency, he recommended releasing Justice Department memorandums describing aggressive interrogations. But when he tried to release photographs of detainee abuse, an eruption of opposition within the administration led the White House to reverse course and order them withheld.

Civil liberties advocates called his departure a triumph of politics over principle because Mr. Craig was a strong proponent of reversing Bush-era policies.

“I worry that absent Greg Craig shepherding the process, there will be a host of politicized decisions going forward,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who led a task force calling for the closing of Guantánamo.

But Mr. Craig rejected that. “I think the president will keep the promises he made and that are incorporated in the spirit and the letter of the executive orders,” Mr. Craig said. “I think he is committed to closing Guantánamo and will move heaven and earth to get it done.”

In a White House that has had little turnover and few publicized episodes of infighting, the counsel’s office has been an exception. Mr. Craig was the second lawyer to leave in the last week, after the resignation of the deputy counsel, Cassandra Q. Butts.

In a statement, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Craig. “Greg Craig is a close friend and trusted adviser who tackled many tough challenges as White House counsel,” he said. “Because of Greg’s leadership, we have confirmed the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court, set the toughest ethics standards for any administration in history, and ensured that we are keeping the nation secure in a manner that is consistent with our laws and our values.”

Mr. Craig, 64, was an early supporter of Mr. Obama’s presidential bid and played the role of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, during campaign debate preparations. But while he was close to the president, several officials said he never became a member of Mr. Obama’s inner circle and faced friction with Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff.

Some administration officials faulted Mr. Craig for being blindsided by fierce Congressional reaction to closing Guantánamo, even from Democrats, who argued against detainees being sent to prisons in their states. His tenure was also marked by vetting missteps, as cabinet nominees like former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico had to withdraw.

Friends said Mr. Craig was unfairly blamed for the mistakes as well as the Guantánamo controversy, noting that there was a broad internal consensus that the president should order the prison closed within a year, a goal that now looks unlikely to be met.