Harriet Miers Leaving White House

Harriet Miers, long-time White House counsel and briefly a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, plans to leave the Bush administration Jan. 31.

The White House said Miers submitted her resignation Wednesday and spokesman Tony Snow confirmed a search for a successor was under way Thursday.

Harriet is a very special person in this White House, Snow said. She is beloved not only because she is a really good human being, she’s an extraordinarily wonderful human being, but also somebody who is a very careful and scrupulous lawyer, a ferocious defender of the Constitution, and somebody who was also deeply loyal to the President, and just somebody who is a delight to work with.

Miers, 61, was nominated by Bush in 2005 to succeed the retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Her intellect was never questioned but some doubted her credentials to be a justice, having never been a judge.

Her sharpest critics were not liberal Democrats but conservative Republicans eager to see the Supreme Court shift to the right. She withdrew her nomination and Bush chose Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to succeed O’Connor.