Goss-Picked CIA #3 Kyle "Dusty" Foggo Under Crim. Investigation In "Duke" Cunningham Bribery Scandal...

Neither Mr. Goss, 67 years old, nor President Bush, who accepted the resignation during a brief White House announcement Friday, gave any reason for the surprise exit. (Read the full text of their statements.) But it comes after the once highflying agency has been eclipsed in the post-9/11 shake-up of the intelligence community and the creation of a White House-based National Intelligence directorate under John Negroponte that had sapped power from the Central Intelligence Agency chief. More recently, the agency has been rocked by a controversy over intelligence leaks.

The agency also has been drawn into a federal investigation of bribery that has sent former Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham to prison. Just this past week, the CIA confirmed that its third-ranking official, a hand-picked appointee of Mr. Goss, had attended poker games at a hospitality suite set up by a defense contractor implicated in the bribing of former Rep. Cunningham. Friday, people with knowledge of the continuing Cunningham inquiry said the CIA official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, is under federal criminal investigation in connection with awarding agency contracts.

Mr. Bush didn't immediately name a successor to Mr. Goss. Current and former intelligence officials speculated that one likely candidate would be Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland-security adviser.

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