Personality Spotlight: Michael Leiter

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- President-elect Barack Obama said Friday Michael Leiter will remain as director of the U.S. National Counter-terrorism Center during his administration.

Before joining the center, Leiter was deputy chief of staff for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, helping to coordinate its internal and external operations to include relationships with the White House, several departments, the CIA and Congress, Wikipedia.com said.

He was also involved in the development of national intelligence centers and their melding into the intelligence community.

He also was deputy general counsel and assistant director of the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. While with the commission, Leiter focused on reforms of the U.S. intelligence community, particularly the development of what is now the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the online encyclopedia said.

From 2002 until 2005, he was an assistant U.S. States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where he prosecuted a wide variety of federal crimes, including narcotics offenses, organized crime and racketeering, capital murder and money laundering.

Leiter also was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Chief Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

Leiter earned his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and was the 113th President of the Harvard Law Review. He earned his bachelor's degree from Columbia University.