Obama withdraws UN nominee

President Obama has withdrawn his choice to reform the United Nation’s bloated bureaucracy.

Obama had tapped his deputy counsel at the White House, Leslie Berger Kiernan, to be the State Department’s representative for U.N. management and reform. He informed the Senate on Thursday evening that he was pulling her name from consideration, without stating a reason.

“Leslie asked the president to have her name withdrawn for personal/family reasons,” a White House aide told The Hill. Administration officials declined to elaborate, saying they did not want to violate her privacy.

Prior to joining the White House in 2011 Kiernan been with the Zuckerman Spaeder law firm for 23 years. She would have replaced Joseph Torsella, who stepped down at the end of last year. 

Torsella first made a name for himself 20 years ago as Deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning for Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. He lost a 2004 House primary to fellow Democrat Allyson Schwartz and withdrew from the state’s 2010 Senate race to avoid a bitter primary fight with Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter.

Torsella has made waves at the U.N. over the past two years with his efforts to shake up the massive international bureaucracy and make it more transparent. He has notably fought to make audits public and pushed to reduce U.N. compensation so it’s in line with the federal government’s.

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