It was Miller or bust for Bratt
‘Wouldn’t have taken job’ without terror aide
LIKE BATMAN and Robin, they were a package deal.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton defended the terror-fighting credentials of John Miller, his deputy commissioner for intelligence, saying Thursday he wouldn’t have accepted the job without him coming aboard.
“I would not have, being quite frank with you,” Bratton told “CBS This Morning.”
Miller, sitting next to Bratton, quickly interjected, “I would have urged him to do it anyway.”
Miller, a former CBS News correspondent, served as head of the Counterterrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau under Bratton at the Los Angeles Police Department from 2003 to 2005. He started his new job Monday.
The appointment shocked some in the counterterrorism community, who said Miller was inexperienced in comparison with his predecessor, David Co- hen, who retired in December.
Bratton said he had the “utmost confidence” in Miller, 55.
“I am familiar with his time, most certainly with the LAPD, specifically with that city’s counterterrorism entity,” said Bratton, who earns $205,180 a year.
Mayor de Blasio also gave Miller a ringing endorsement.
“I think what he (Bratton) was saying is he considers John Miller a crucial partner in the work,” de Blasio said. “I think the world of John Miller and we’re thrilled that he joined us.”
While Miller is known as a veteran TV news reporter who scored a 1998 interview with Osama Bin Laden, Bratton said he has a “high degree of intimacy with his law enforcement credentials.” Miller will be paid more than $175,600 annually, but he’ll be taking a $500,000 pay cut from what he was making at CBS, The New York Times reported.
The Daily News on Friday published a two- page report and an editorial that detailed Miller’s path from TV reporter to terror chief. Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, praised Bratton’s selection, while a high-ranking counterterrorism official questioned Miller’s credentials.
“You can look at résumés . . . or you can look at deeds,” Miller said on CBS. “Outside of saying, you know, ‘OK, it hurt my feelings, there is no there there.”
Cohen had 40 years of intelligence experience, including a dozen with the NYPD. Former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly lauded Cohen’s counterterrorism efforts for thwarting 16 terror plots in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks.
Miller served as chief NYPD spokesman in 1994-95 during Bratton’s first tenure as NYPD commissioner. He’s also been a spokesman for the FBI and deputy director of analysis division for the federal Office of the Director of National Intelligence.