New York Daily News – by DAN FRIEDMAN
Sen. Chuck Schumer called White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough this morning to urge that President Obama nominate New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly as Homeland Security Secretary.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Friday that she is stepping down to head the University of California system.
“The Department of Homeland Security is one of the most important agencies in the federal government,” Schumer said in a statement Friday. “It’s leader needs to be someone who knows law enforcement, understands anti-terrorism efforts, and is a top-notch administrator, and at the NYPD, Ray Kelly has proven that he excels in all three.”
McDonough’s response was noncommital, an aide said. White House spokesman Jay Carney said it would be “far too premature” to speculate on Napolitano’s successor.
Kelly’s tough cop reputation could make him a relatively popular choice with Republicans.
Schumer is a leading advocate of a Senate immigration reform bill. And his pushing Kelly drove speculation that the pick could help advance the bill with House Republicans addressing GOP concerns about the administration’s committment to follow through on border security measures in the bill.
But an aide said the politics of the immigration reform fight did not factor in Schumer’s thinking in suggesting Kelly.
Schumer has promoted Kelly for other posts. In 2011, he told the Daily News the White House should consider Kelly for FBI director.
Kelly’s association with New York’s controversial stop-and-frisk program and his defense of so-called “Muslim spying” by the department would be a problem with the left if he was nominated.
Any mention of Kelly for the job also draws references to President George W. Bush’s disastrous nomination of former NYPD boss Bernard Kerik for the job.
Schumer noted that Kelly’s experience as former head of Customs and Border Patrol gives him “top-level federal management experience.”
“There is no doubt Ray Kelly would be a great DHS Secretary, and I have urged the White House to very seriously consider his candidacy, “Schumer’s statment continues. “While it would be New York’s loss, Commissioner Kelly’s appointment as the head of DHS would be a great boon for the entire country. Janet Napolitano has done an outstanding job, and if I had to give her a grade on her tenure, it would be ‘A+’. We need someone just as good who can fill her shoes.”
Former House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-L.I.) also touted Kelly for the job Friday.
King cited Kelly’s current work running an agency of about 50,000 experence as CBP chief and as an assistant Treasury secretary.
“You need someone who knows how to fight and win bureaucratic battles, and manage a bureaucracy,” King said.
-With Joseph Straw
dfriedman@nydailynews.com
@dfriedman33
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2013/07/schumer-pushes-ray-kelly-for-dhs-sec
Ray Kelly is an israel worshiper. He goes back and forth to israel.
Just what we need, another one of these infiltrators. Get rid of one
just to get another.
Of course! Why not have Zionist Bloominidiot’s little henchman be in charge. It’s perfect! Especially since he is doing so well with the stop and frisk in NYC, I bet you any money he will continue to incorporate that in his DHS policy when he gets the position. He’ll be the perfect stooge to extend King Pee-Wee’s propaganda and to do his bidding like the good lapdog that he is. Hell, this might be a way to promote little Pee-Wee’s presidential run if we make it that far. What a bunch of psychotic bastards!
And by the way, Senator Schumer is another one that can be added to the list of traitors who need to be hanged for high treason! Congratulations, Schumer. You just tied your own neck.
He made that list a long time ago…
WoW! I can see sh!t is really going to get better now. Why don’t we just dig up Commierad Stalin, put him in & call it good?
At this point, it doesn’t matter who takes the post. What’s done is done.
No one gets selected or elected unless they can be blackmailed…