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Obama performance chief Killefer out, citing taxes
Associated Press
Issue date: 2/4/09 Section: News
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Killefer was the second major nominee to withdraw. Within hours, former Sen. Tom Daschle also withdrew his nomination to be secretary of health and human services.
In a brief letter to President Barack Obama, Killefer, the 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., wrote that she had "come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay" that must be avoided in responding to urgent economic problems.
She offered no further details of her tax difficulties.
In announcing his choice of Sen. Judd Gregg to be commerce secretary, Obama took no questions Tuesday and left the White House lectern ignoring a shouted question about why so many of his nominees have tax problems.
But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs later insisted Killefer and Daschle decided on their own to withdraw. "I think they both recognized that you can't set an example of responsibility but accept a different standard in who serves," Gibbs told a White House briefing.
When Killefer's selection was announced by Obama on Jan. 7, The Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. Since then, administration officials have refused to answer questions about the tax error, which she resolved five months after the lien was filed.
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