5 years ago 
 
 (CNN) - Richard Grenell, who joined Mitt Romney's team as a foreign policy adviser less than two weeks ago, has left the campaign, a spokesman for the likely Republican presidential nominee confirmed Tuesday. 
 
 "We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons," campaign manager Matt Rhoades said in a statement. "We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill." 
 
 
 
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 Since joining the campaign in mid-April, Grenell's short tenure has been marked by controversy involving his Twitter account, as well as heavy criticism of Grenell's sexual orientation from some on the conservative right. The longtime Republican strategist is openly gay. 
 
 Most pressing, Grenell faced recent scrutiny over reports that he had deleted hundreds of posts on Twitter shortly after being appointed by the Romney campaign. 
 
 The tweets, written prior to his hiring, criticized the physical appearances of certain high-profile Democratic women, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. 
 
 Archived online, the Twitter posts also included several jabs aimed at Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista, during the Republican presidential primary. 
 
 Grenell previously served in the George W. Bush administration as a communications director at the United Nations and an adviser to four U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. 
 
 Also since joining the Romney campaign, Grenell has taken heat from the anti-gay group American Family Association. 
 
 Writing in a blog last week, Bryan Fischer, a director for the conservative group, argued: "The message Gov. Romney appears to be sending to the pro-family community through his Grenell appointment is 'drop dead'." 
 
 Later, during an interview on CNN, Fischer referred to Grenell's hire as a "big gain for the homosexual lobby." 
 
 In a statement obtained by the Washington Post, Grenell pointed to the public discussion over his sexual orientation as a reason for leaving the campaign. 
 
 "While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama's foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign," Grenell said in the statement. 
 
 He added: "I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team." 
 
 - CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta contributed to this report. 
 
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 McDonnell's Va. ads are about his state, not himself, spokesman says ||||| Richard Grenell, the openly gay spokesman recently hired to sharpen the foreign policy message of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, has resigned in the wake of a full-court press by anti-gay conservatives. 
 
 In a statement obtained by Right Turn, Grenell says: 
 
 I have decided to resign from the Romney campaign as the Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman. While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team. 
 
 According to sources familiar with the situation, Grenell decided to resign after being kept under wraps during a time when national security issues, including the president’s ad concerning Osama bin Laden, had emerged front and center in the campaign. 
 
 Pieces in two conservative publications, the National Review and Daily Caller, reflected the uproar by some social conservatives over the appointment. [UPDATE, 4:30 p.m.: Although Grenell also raised the ire of liberal commentators with now-deleted tweets about certain prominent women, none of the sources I spoke with mentioned the tweets as a factor in his resignation decision.] 
 
 In the National Review, Matthew J. Franck wrote late last week: “Suppose Barack Obama comes out — as Grenell wishes he would — in favor of same-sex marriage in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. How fast and how publicly will Richard Grenell decamp from Romney to Obama?” 
 
 The argument that Grenell could essentially not be openly gay and serve on a GOP presidential campaign was belied by the fact that Grenell has been a loyal Republican for many years, working for esteemed foreign policy figures including former Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton. 
 
 The ongoing pressure from social conservatives over his appointment and the reluctance of the Romney campaign to send Grenell out as a spokesman while controversy swirled left Grenell essentially with no job. The Romney camp has not responded to my request for comment. 
 
 UPDATE (3:10 p.m.): The Romney camp has now responded via campaign manager Matt Rhoades: “We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons. We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill.” 
 
 That is a perhaps too subtle retort to those calling for Grenell’s head, that he was not hired to advise on gay issues but on foreign policy matters. 
 
 UPDATE (3:50 p.m.): Right Turn has learned from multiple sources that the senior officials from the Romney campaign and respected Republicans not on the campaign contacted Ric Grenell over the weekend in an attempt to persuade him not to leave the campaign. Those were unsuccessful. During the two weeks after Grenell’s hiring was announced the Romney campaign did not put Grenell out to comment on national security matters and did not use him on a press foreign policy conference call. Despite the controversy in new media and in conservative circles, there was no public statement of support for Grenell by the campaign and no supportive social conservatives were enlisted to calm the waters. Beyond his statement, Grenell has declined further comment today. ||||| In a statement fed through the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin, Mitt Romney's foreign policy spokesman -- last seen furiously deleting tweets about Callista Gingrich and other subjects -- announces he won't be joining the campaign after all: 
 
 I have decided to resign from the Romney campaign as the Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman. While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team. 
 
 Rubin's headline ("Richard Grenell hounded from Romney campaign by anti-gay conservatives") pins the blame on a handful of Christian conservatives who criticized the appointment because of Grenell's sexual orientation. But Grenell's off-color and massively off-message tweets, along with his reputation for imperiousness at the United Nations, drew scrunity almost immediately after his selection was announced. 
 
 As the back-and-forth over Osama bin Laden in the last week has shown, foreign policy and national security are not the areas for a campaign to be taking risks with its choice of messenger. 
 
 Read more about: Mitt Romney, 2012 Elections, Richard Grenell
– Richard Grenell's job as Mitt Romney's foreign policy spokesman lasted all of about two weeks. Grenell had been a source of controversy on two fronts: He was openly gay, which rankled some conservative commenters, and he had issued a long trail of tweets before taking the job that mocked not only Callista Gingrich but prominent Democratic women, including Rachel Maddow and Hillary Clinton. The Right Turn blog at the Washington Post broke the news and says Grenell was "hounded" from the job "by anti-gay conservatives." (It cites this National Review column as an example.) But Politico says Grenell's "off-color and massively off-message tweets" also played a role, as does CNN. Grenell statement: "... my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign." But he made a point to thank Romney for his "clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team." Romney camp: “We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons. We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill.”