https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/politics/joseph-lieberman-fbi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
>Former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, once President Trump’s preferred candidate for F.B.I. director, has withdrawn his name from consideration, citing his law firm’s central role in Mr. Trump’s legal defense team.
>Mr. Lieberman, who has no federal law enforcement experience, said it was a “great honor” to be considered but pulled out after the president tapped Marc E. Kasowitz, a partner in the Manhattan firm that employs Mr. Lieberman, as his counsel in “various” investigations.
>“I do believe it would be best to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest, given my role as senior counsel,” Mr. Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, wrote in a letter to the White House dated Wednesday and provided by his firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres.
>Mr. Lieberman is the latest of several candidates to take themselves out of consideration, including Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Alice Fisher, a former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration.
>Another candidate still in the mix who has received less attention is Kenneth L. Wainstein, another former Bush administration official. He was interviewed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, last week, after a higher-profile series of interviews they did with an initial slate of candidates, according to several people familiar with the matter.
>Mr. Wainstein, whose interview was reported by The Wall Street Journal, has a long career in law enforcement and national security. He served as the top Homeland Security adviser to Mr. Bush, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division and the United States attorney for the District of Columbia.
>He also served as F.B.I. general counsel and chief of staff to Robert S. Mueller III, then the F.B.I. director. Mr. Mueller has been appointed special counsel to lead the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
>But complicating his prospects, Mr. Wainstein was among 50 veteran Republican national security officials who signed a letter last summer declaring Mr. Trump unfit to be president.
>The withdrawal of Mr. Lieberman, 75, from consideration for the F.B.I. post had been expected for several days. He fell out of consideration after objections from several Trump aides, who urged the president to pick a younger candidate with deeper connections to the F.B.I., which has suffered low morale since Mr. Trump’s abrupt dismissal this month of James B. Comey as the director.
>The president bonded with Mr. Lieberman during their interactions and told aides he wanted to select him for the job before leaving last week on his nine-day trip to the Middle East and Europe, his first travel abroad as president. But several of his top aides, including Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, urged the president to delay and consider a wider range of potential nominees.
>Mr. Trump, recognizing the sensitivity of the decision after revelations that he had pressured Mr. Comey to drop investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives, reluctantly assented, according to two administration officials.
>Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Kasowitz, his friend and personal lawyer, this week to represent him in congressional and F.B.I. inquiries, the officials said.
>Mr. Lieberman, who served in the Senate as both a Democrat and an independent, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.