By Allan Lengel

ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON — FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has picked seasoned women agents to head FBI offices in San Francisco and Honolulu.

The women are replacing women agents.

Stephanie Douglas will head the San Francisco office and Charlene B. Thornton will take charge of the Honolulu office, the FBI said.

Douglas started with the FBI in 1989 and went on to the Washington field office where she investigated violent crimes, public corruption and “some of the FBI’s most sensitive counterintelligence and espionage investigations”, the FBI said. In 2000, she was promoted to a supervisory post and was detailed to the CIA, the FBI said.

After taking various posts, she was named deputy assistant director for Operations Support in the Counterintelligence Division, the FBI said. She replaces Charlene Thornton, who goes off to Honolulu.

Thornton joined the FBI in 1979, and started working criminal counterintelligence and counterrorism in the Indianapolis and Los Angeles divisions, the FBI said.

In 1995, she became assisant special agent in charge of the Honolulu office. She later went on to become special agent in charge of the Birmingham, Ala. and Phoenix divisions and in 2006 headed the San Francisco office.

She replaces Janet Kammerman, who is now associate executive assistant director of the Human Resources Branch at FBI headquarters.