Jackson Becomes the Latest Texan to Leave the Administration

WASHINGTON — Another Texan who came to town as part of a team President Bush said was above reproach is leaving town under investigation.

Longtime Bush friend Alphonso Jackson said Monday he will step down as secretary of Housing and Urban Development April 18.

"There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me," Jackson told HUD employees.

Jackson made no overt mention of his legal woes, including an FBI investigation of his links to a friend who got $392,000 from HUD to manage post-Katrina construction in Louisiana. The probe came to light last October, prompting a White House statement expressing Bush's confidence that the investigation "will clearly establish that he did nothing improper or unethical."

Congressional Democrats raised the heat on Jackson last week when Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said the secretary's legal problems had become a "worsening distraction" while the nation was trying to navigate through a housing crisis.

Dodd welcomed the resignation.

"We need to have people whose focus and attention is going to be 100 percent on this issue," he said Monday. And the secretary of Housing has to be in that position. With these other matters, it's going to be difficult and impossible for that to occur. So this was the right decision."

Jackson's departure follows resignations by several longtime Bush friends and associates who left the administration amid investigations, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former political adviser Karl Rove.

Stuart Bowen Jr., another longtime Bush aide dating back to the Texas Governor's Office, is now under FBI investigation of his actions as special investigator for Iraq reconstruction.

New York University Professor Paul C. Light, an expert in presidential appointments, said Jackson's departure is part of a trend in the Bush White House.

"Unlike past administrations, which were burned early by overconfidence in past loyalty, the Bush administration has relied on past loyalty as the single most important factor in the appointments process." Light said. "They have mostly ignored the lessons of their failures and continue to look first at loyalty, second at ideology, and rarely at expertise."

Jackson, 62, signed on with HUD in June 2001 as deputy secretary and chief operating officer, moving to Washington after serving as president of Austin-based American Electric Power-Texas.

He won Senate confirmation for the agency's top job, replacing now-Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, exactly four years prior to Monday's resignation.

Jackson previously had served in several jobs with the city of St. Louis, including director of public safety and director of the St. Louis Housing Authority and director of the Dallas Housing Authority.

Jackson's legal woes also include a lawsuit filed by Philadelphia's housing authority alleging he tried to retaliate against the authority after it turned down a deal involving Jackson friend Kenny Gamble, a music producer and developer.

A congressional committee questioned Jackson about the Philadelphia project last month. He declined to respond.

In 2007, HUD's inspector general reported "some problematic instances" surrounding the use of HUD money, including Jackson's use of his authority to block "for a significant period of time" money allocated to a contractor who contributed to Democratic candidates. The inquiry began after an April 2006 Dallas speech in which Jackson spoke about a contract applicant who said he did not like Bush.

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson told the audience. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

Jackson later said he had lied when he said the anti-Bush comment triggered any decisions.

Bush, who first got to know Jackson when both owned homes in a Dallas neighborhood in the late 1980s, said Monday he accepted the resignation "with regret" and called Jackson " a great American success story." Jackson was a partner in the Texas Rangers when Bush was the team's managing general partner.

"Alphonso has always understood the value of hard work and equal opportunity for all Americans," Bush said in a statement issued by the White House.

Monday's resignation by Jackson moved quickly into the presidential race when New York Sen. Hillary Clinton called the departure the end to "a tenure at HUD marked by an indifference to Congressional oversight powers, cronyism, and corrupt contracting practices that have no place in our government."

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said the " resignation amid a housing crisis and charges of cronyism serves as a stark reminder of what's at stake in this election."

Miers, Gonzales and Rove, each of whom had longstanding ties to Bush, resigned in the past year during congressional investigations of White House involvement in the firings of federal prosecutors.

Additionally, Rove testified at the grand jury that investigated the leak of the identity of a covert CIA agent. The probe led to the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, for obstruction of justice in conjunction with the investigation.

Rove resigned last August.

More recently, Rove cited executive privilege, and declined to show up at congressional hearing concerning the firings. Democratic leaders are looking into whether Rove engineered improper political firings, an allegation denied by the administration.

Miers, who had been Bush's personal lawyer in Dallas, left the White House in January 2007, several months after she withdrew as his nominee for the Supreme Court.

Last month, the Democratic-controlled House filed a federal lawsuit stemming from the refusal of the Justice Department to seek criminal contempt charges against Miers for ignoring a subpoena to testify about the firing of federal prosecutors.

Gonzales, a top Bush aide in the Texas Governor's Office, resigned as attorney general last August after months of investigations of his role in the firings.

The investigation of Bowen, a former Bush aide at the Texas Capitol and the White House, includes allegations that he and a top aide at the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction violated federal law by reviewing staff e-mails.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that a Richmond grand jury has heard from at least nine current and former employees of the agency. The Post said some of the witnesses have complained of mismanagement and abuse of authority at Bowen's agency.

Bradford Berenson, Bowen's lawyer, told the Post he does not believe there is sufficient evidence for prosecutors to bring criminal charges. A previous grand jury that looked into the agency did not return indictments.