The agency needs a leader who has a strong relationship with the president. No perfect choice to replace Petraeus

President Barack Obama needs a quick, no-drama solution to a sensational personnel problem.

But the vacancy left at the top of the Central Intelligence Agency by David Petraeus’s abrupt departure amid a headline-grabbing sex scandal calls for a particularly complex skill set. It requires a charismatic chief to oversee the large, notoriously tough-to-manage intelligence apparatus.


( PHOTOS: General David Petraeus's career)

It needs a leader who has a strong relationship with the president — and who understands that it’s the president himself who sets major policy and takes a very active role in carrying it out, right down to approving and rejecting targets for drone strikes in some instances.

And most of all, it calls for a politically savvy operator who understands how to interact with Congress — and can assuage some of the current anger on Capitol Hill that lawmakers were kept in the dark about the probe. Lawmakers will have an opportunity to vent some of their frustration on Friday, when Petraeus is scheduled to appear before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in closed-door sessions.

( PHOTOS: Who's who in the Gen. Petraeus scandal)

There is no single, slam-dunk choice for his former job, intelligence community insiders say. Some contenders have long ties to the agency but lack the throw-weight on Capitol Hill or a history with Obama’s tight-knit White House team. Others are wired on the Hill and at the White House but would have to win over the trust of the CIA’s executive corps and rank and file.

Still others might run into roadblocks in the confirmation process.

And after the white-hot media attention to Petraeus’s exit, the emerging revelations about the involvement of Gen. John Allen and the mounting congressional scrutiny of the Benghazi attack, a nice, newsless confirmation trip past the Senate for the fifth CIA head in eight years would be ideal.

( Also on POLITICO: Petraeus hearings set to begin)

“Given how [Petraeus] left, the first and single most important quality is someone who’s what I’d call bulletproof in terms of confirmation,” said Bush administration homeland security adviser Fran Townsend. “Not somebody who’s never been confirmed before or somebody who is in any way vulnerable to a confirmation fight … someone who has filled out all the forms and been through this process.”

The most-favored candidate among agency veterans is Michael Morell, a longtime intelligence analyst who has served as the CIA’s deputy director since 2010 and who was named acting director on Friday. He seems to be interested. In a message to CIA staff last Friday, Morell said he was honored to “once again” serve as acting director at Obama’s request.

“His choice will be reassuring to the agency,” said Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director from 2006 until the early weeks of the Obama administration. “He’s a very familiar face in the West Wing because, one, he’s been there a while and, two, Petraeus traveled so much. Michael’s very much a known quantity.”

( Also on POLITICO: Petraeus scandal tests D.C. code)

“They would be wise to give the job to Michael Morell,” said a former senior intelligence official, who asked not to be named. “Whenever an institution goes through something like the sudden departure, under a cloud, of its leader, it rips up the institution a little bit, even if it had nothing to do really with the agency. It can cause great turmoil and this place has got a lot on its plate. … Do you want to inject into the middle of that bringing in an outsider who would have a steep learning curve and come in with a new entourage?”

Morell is well-liked in Congress and could be confirmed easily, CIA advisers and other analysts say. However, as a career intelligence officer, he wouldn’t command the same respect on Capitol Hill as Petraeus won for his military achievements and previous director Leon Panetta derived from decades in Congress and at the White House.

Morell’s “not a big personality like Panetta or a famous former general like Petraeus. In the perfect world, you’d have a guy who had a big personality, [but] I don’t think it’s a showstopper,” the former senior intelligence official said.

Townsend said a candidate who doesn’t draw the spotlight like Panetta or Petraeus might be just fine, given the spectacle involved in Petraeus’s exit due to an extramarital affair. “How important is it to be an outsized personality?” she said. “I don’t, at the moment, think it’s a big thing. In fact, it may be less important now.”

Another possibility for the job is Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan. However, it’s unclear whether he wants the assignment. He, too, is a CIA veteran, but associates say Brennan has been talking of needing a break from four years of relentless work at the White House coordinating the response to terrorist threats and other dangers to the homeland. The CIA job wouldn’t be much of a break.

“I think John has been planning for some time to move on,” said Townsend, though she said she has not discussed the new CIA opening with him.

Several former officials said the mention of Brennan as a potential CIA director underscores an issue that could dissuade some possible candidates outside the agency from taking the job: claims of meddling and micromanagement by the White House.

“Presidents rely on fewer and fewer people as they move on in the presidency, and those people are almost always centered in the White House,” said former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), a vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Some insiders said Brennan has deep connections inside the CIA because of his lengthy experience there. They said that in his role at the White House, he has poked and prodded people at all levels of the agency for updates and information.

“The White House has kept a tight rein on a lot of agencies, including the CIA,” added another former senior intelligence official. “Whoever’s selected for director has to be comfortable with that — or make an arrangement to get out from under it.”

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has faulted Obama for making very specific decisions, such as which individuals will be targeted with deadly drone strikes from the military or CIA. “I don’t think that’s really a role for a president to be picking targets, myself,” Rumsfeld said in May on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. “It seems to me you develop a strategy at that level, and then the military forces execute a strategy.”

Brennan and another possible nominee for the CIA job, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, could both face confirmation difficulties. Brennan was Obama’s first choice for CIA chief after he won the presidency in 2008. But Brennan withdrew his name after liberal critics questioned how thoroughly and vocally he protested the aggressive interrogation techniques that President George W. Bush ordered for terrorism suspects after Sept. 11.

It’s unclear whether that controversy would return with the same force now, but another one might: claims that the Obama administration leaked national-security secrets to bolster Obama’s reelection chances. Obama has angrily denied the charge. However, the FBI is investigating the leaks. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other Republicans have publicly suggested that Brennan and Donilon were behind some of the disclosures, such as those in New York Times reporter David Sanger’s recent book on Obama’s security policies.

Another frequently mentioned name: former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who served on the House Intelligence Committee and quit Congress last year to head up the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Townsend said naming Harman would be “most in keeping with the two previous” directors in terms of appointing someone who knows the ways of Congress.

A CIA director’s ability to win over Congress is “hugely important,” said Hamilton, now at Indiana University. “You have to keep them on your side and it takes a lot of trips to the Hill and a lot of consultation, otherwise the leader in the intelligence [committees] get very nervous. … The relationship with Congress is a critical part of the job.”

Harman said this week she expects Obama to tap either Morell or Brennan, whom The Washington Post has pointed to as the leading candidates. “I think the two candidates whose names have been floated are likely be selected and would be an excellent choice, but I’m flattered to be on the lists various people have put forward,” she told POLITICO.

But some lawmakers said nominating Harman could resurrect questions about press reports that a wiretap captured her promising to lobby the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against two pro-Israel lobbyists. Harman has called the claims an “outrageous and recycled canard.”

Other potential nominees who would bring congressional experience include Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). Reed, a West Point graduate and former paratrooper, is regularly considered for top national security openings in the Obama administration. But he said on Tuesday that he was not interested in the post. Hagel, who didn’t run for reelection in 2008, co-chairs Obama’s intelligence oversight board.

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers is another potential contender. But he was directly involved in touting the Osama bin Laden operation to Hollywood filmmakers and provided them with the name of a SEAL team planner who Vickers said could give them further details about the operation.

Hayden mentioned another, somewhat out-of-the box possibility for CIA: House Intelligence Commitee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) “He’s done robust oversight but has been less partisan than others,” Hayden said. It’s unclear, however, whether Obama would trust him enough for the CIA post and whether Rogers would feel comfortable without a guarantee of unfettered access to the president.

“The power of the director flows in no small measure through the perceived closeness and proximity to the president,” Hamilton said. “If you have a situation like Jim Woolsey who did not have good access, all agreed, to Clinton, it weakened him. … You must not be seen as being excluded from the inner circle of the president.”

No matter who gets the post, Hamilton said he’d add another request to the list of requirements: He’d like to have a director who stays a while.

“We’ve had a lot of turnover in that position over the years, and that’s always unsettled me a little bit,” he said. “People don’t stay in that job very long, and it seems to me unfortunate.”

Hayden also noted the high turnover in the job: five directors over the past eight years. “I don’t think this is the time for radical experimentation or to shake the place up,” he said.

Taken as a whole, the wish list for the president and the Senate to replace a disgraced hero is daunting.

“Nobody fits the job description, whatever it is, perfectly,” Hamilton acknowledged. “All these things can be overcome with the right people and the right personality, but the fact of the challenge is undeniable.”

John Bresnahan contributed to this report.