Fran Townsend, the former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, confirmed to POLITICO that the Trump administration has approached her about replacing ousted FBI Director James Comey.

In this week’s episode of the Women Rule podcast, Townsend revealed her thoughts about being thrust into the middle of the controversial job search after President Donald Trump abruptly fired Comey earlier this month.


“I’ve talked to folks in the administration about it,” she told POLITICO’s Carrie Budoff Brown about the role.

A woman has never led the investigative agency, and Townsend noted that her candidacy for the job is itself “history-making.”

“The fact that women are in that mix says a lot about how far we’ve come. That hasn’t been true before,” she said. “Regardless of whatever decision is made, we have begun to shatter a glass ceiling about what is the population of people who are qualified and competitive to hold such a position.”

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Townsend was not the only woman to make the short list, either. While former Sen. Joe Lieberman has emerged as the frontrunner for the post, former Justice Department Criminal Division Chief Alice Fisher was briefly a contender, before she pulled her name from consideration last week.

As for whether she’d take the job if offered, the former Bush official demurred: “You know what? I learned in the White House I don’t do hypotheticals,” she said, “but I will say I was quite honored and quite flattered to be approached.”

This week’s Women Rule episode dives deep into the experiences of Townsend and two other prominent women in the Bush White House, Candi Wolff, assistant for legislative affairs, and Julie Cram, deputy assistant and director of the Public Liaison Office. The three women reflect on their stints in the executive branch and offer up advice for the current Republican administration.

Here are the highlights:

2:17 Ten years removed from their posts in the Bush administration, the trio reflect on their stints in the White House.

Townsend says she doesn’t miss being “right in the middle of every crisis.”

Even though “serving was an absolute privilege,” the former Homeland Security adviser says her time in the administration was like “hitting yourself in the head with a hammer – you don’t know how much it hurts until you stop.”

4:45 Wolff discloses how she knew it was time to leave the White House.

“I was exhausted. I didn’t have the creativity. I felt like I wasn’t offering my best,” Wolff says. “The president deserved the best, and he deserved the best of me.”

6:40 The three discuss whether the women in the Bush White House had any strategies to support one another.

“There’s a sisterhood, right?” Cram says of the women in the administration.

But Wolff notes that “most of it was implicit” and that where it showed through most was in supporting the younger women in the White House.

“I would be more cognizant of, you know, making sure that everybody was heard and diversity of folks at the table and really kind of helping them find their way,” she says.

12:15 Townsend recalls how being a woman sometimes benefited her in the international security arena.

President Bush, she says, “understood quite well how to use the fact, in foreign policy, that I was a woman to his advantage.”

15:11 The three former Bush officials discuss how women differed from their male counterparts working in the executive branch.

“Women’s willingness to be collaborative – to share authority, to share ideas, and then to share credit for the outcome, it’s not the same sort of competitiveness that oftentimes I’ve seen among male colleagues,” Townsend says.

Cram adds: “I think frequently it is the women who are able to kind of keep the ball moving and not take care so much about the credit.”

19:50 Wolff and Cram deliberate how to navigate the pressures of Washington’s after-hours social culture and balance it with family life.

“Part of our job is knowing and talking – and in addition to the substance, there’s a networking element and that is hard to juggle,” Cram says. “And I think you just have to be clear. You’ve got to set your time frame.”

23:40 The gaggle of Bush administration officials offer up their own advice to young women still starting off their careers.

“You need to learn to delegate and share responsibilities the whole way,” Townsend counsels. “And it gets easier the more senior you get.”

Wolff also advises to “take the risk and opportunities when they’re presented to you,” and Cram adds that you have to “trust your instincts and continue to learn how to act on that more quickly.”

29:30 Wolff, Cram and Townsend give their recommendations to the new Republican president in the White House, especially now that there’s an investigation into Trump aides’ ties to Russia.

Townsend notes that having special counsels investigating a president’s inner circle “is not, regrettably, so uncommon in Washington.”

“We were in the White House when Pat Fitzgerald was the special prosecutor,” she recalls, referencing the inquiry into the Valerie Plame leak. “Just as we did when we were in the White House, they are going to have to sort of compartmentalize that. Put it aside.”

34:13 Townsend recalls working with Robert Mueller, the recently appointed special prosecutor investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. She praised his detail-oriented focus and said he wouldn’t tolerate any leaks of the investigation.

Asked what happens if you leak under Mueller, Townsend responds: “You get fired. If you don’t get indicted, you get fired.”

37:22 The former homeland security adviser confirms that she has been approached by Trump’s administration about the open FBI director position and comments on the historic nature of that consideration.

“The fact that women are in that mix says a lot about how far we’ve come,” she says. “I think the history-making part is I, Alice Fisher, bring the same skills as someone as respected and admired as Bob Mueller brought to that job.”

Townsend explains her past criticisms of Trump last year, defending them as coming early in the primary process.

The former Bush official, who was also considered for Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, says she doesn’t believe she has to “overcome” it in the administration’s eyes.

“They invited me in, and so obviously they didn’t think this was an issue,” she says.

