Obama pick for Iraq envoy withdraws nomination

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Obama administration’s pick to be the next ambassador to Iraq withdrew from consideration Monday as Senate Republicans suggested his confirmation was endangered because of his behavior and judgment while working at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in 2008.

Brett McGurk’s nomination, which was scheduled for a vote today by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, became endangered after the release on the Internet of sometimes racy emails he sent to journalist Gina Chon while he was married and was negotiating a security agreement with the Iraqi government during President George W. Bush’s administration.

The emails indicated McGurk had an intimate relationship with Chon. McGurk has since married Chon, who resigned from The Wall Street Journal last week after acknowledging that she violated in-house rules by showing McGurk unpublished stories.

In a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, McGurk said he was removing himself from consideration for the job with a “heavy heart.”