Obama Supports Iraqi Ambassador Nominee Who Had Affair With Journalist

President Barack Obama is continuing to support Brett McGurk's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to Iraq despite a burgeoning controversy over McGurk's alleged affair with a journalist.

A lascivious email exchange suggesting that McGurk had carried on an extramarital affair with Gina Chon, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, surfaced last week. McGurk was married and working for the National Security Council under the Bush administration at the time, while Chon was covering the war in Iraq.

McGurk and Chon have since married, and Chon resigned from the Wall Street Journal after the damning emails emerged. But the political fallout has threatened to derail McGurk's nomination. A group of Republican senators wrote to the Obama administration that McGurk lacks the leadership and management experience necessary to head the U.S. embassy in Iraq.

But top White House adviser David Plouffe, speaking on CNN's State of the Union, denied any intention to withdraw McGurk's nomination.

We've made this nomination and we think he will ably serve as ambassador, Plouffe said on Sunday.