CIA director Porter Goss resigns

Posted by Matthew Wheeland at 11:17 AM on May 5, 2006.

At a press conference today in the White House, short-lived CIA director and former Republican congressman Porter Goss announced his resignation.

Goss was appointed to lead the CIA by Bush in August 2004, bumped up from the House of Representatives, where he served from 1989 until joining the CIA. His name has come up frequently lately in reports of an incredibly juicy ongoing corruption scandal on Capitol Hill, which, as the Progress Report detailed yesterday, involves poker parties, prostitution and corrupt limo companies, as well as high-powered politicians and defense companies.

This is yet another major blow for the Administration. As georgia10 writes on DailyKos:

This isn't part of some White House shake-up. This is a scandal-plagued Bush appointee resigning just as an investigation into another Republican corruption scandal hits too close to home.

Former Republican lawmaker and current CIA Director Porter Goss's name has surfaced time and time again in the Republican bribe scheme, which began with a focus on disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham and his Republican lobbyists.

Matthew Wheeland is AlterNet's managing editor.