Bush Asks CIA Director Tenet to Stay

Bush Asks CIA Director Tenet to Stay

NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2001

WASHINGTON (UPI) – President-elect George W. Bush has asked CIA Director George Tenet to remain in his post for the foreseeable future, according to Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Tenet is the second high-ranking Clinton administration official retained by Bush. The president-elect earlier named Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta as his secretary of transportation.

According to Fleischer, Bush spoke with Tenet "in the last couple of days" and asked him to remain at the CIA for "an undetermined period of time," an assignment Tenet accepted.

The duration of Tenet's service in the Bush administration is "something that the president-elect will decide at a later period," Fleischer said Tuesday.

Tenet has served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency since July 1997 after serving as deputy to Director John Deutch beginning in July 1995.

Tenet served in the Clinton White House as an intelligence and security adviser and worked on Clinton's transition team after the 1992 presidential election.

Tenet also worked in Congress for Republicans and Democrats, serving first as an aide to the late Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania and then as a staff member for Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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