Former Fox News host Heather Nauert has withdrawn her name from consideration as ambassador to the United Nations because, apparently, her former nanny, though legal, was not authorized to work in the U.S. UPDATED

In December, Donald Trump had announced he would nominate Nauert, but the formal nomination was never made. That prompted suspicion the nomination was in trouble. As I wrote when it was announced Nauert would be the nominee, she was spectacularly unqualified even for her then-position at the State Department:

She arrived there without a single credential in government, foreign policy or diplomacy. Just a few days before, however, she had promoted Ivanka Trump’s shoes. Less than a year later, Nauert got her own big promotion and became the fourth highest-ranking person at the State Department.

And it’s not as though she was so terrific at State. A “senior department official” told Business Insider that Nauert “requires a lot of hand-holding, and getting her up to speed on the issues requires us having to brief her over and over, often on the same issues because she doesn’t absorb the information well.” NPR noted that she had “cited D-Day - the Allied invasion of Normandy against the Nazis — as an example of America’s strong relationship with Germany.”

Then, last week, CNN’s KFile reminded us of Nauert’s Islamophobic history. In 2009, she hosted an hour-long special on Fox News called “Terror from Within”:

Nauert introduced the program as exploring "a school of thought that there is a stealthy jihad taking place within the US. And the theory is that some in our country want to destroy our America from within."

They would achieve this destruction, she continued, "by using our own legal system against us, by undermining our financial system and even taking away our holidays. The fact that we are a PC, politically correct country, well that will only be used against us."

KFile also reminded us of Nauert's 2013 appearance on Fox & Friends in which she said, "Sharia law is now changing everything" while covering a story on a YMCA private swim class for Muslim girls that accommodated their religious requirements.

But what really seems to have sunk Nauert’s nomination was an almost non-existent nanny problem. Bloomberg got the scoop:

Nauert’s nomination began to falter after the White House was alerted to a problem in her background check: She had in the past employed an immigrant nanny who was in the U.S. legally but wasn’t authorized to work, according to two people familiar with the matter.

[…]

Nauert’s nanny issue became politically untenable -- and would almost certainly have come out in her confirmation hearing -- given that halting illegal migration was a centerpiece of Trump’s campaign and has animated his fight to build a wall on the border with Mexico. A day before Nauert withdrew, Trump declared a national emergency to secure more money for the proposed wall, after Congress approved only about $1.4 billion in a spending deal.

The Washington Post has more details:

[The nanny] was a Jamaican national employed by Nauert and her husband 10 years ago. The Nauerts paid her salary in cash. When they discovered she was not paying taxes, they insisted the tax bill be paid, the person said.

Nauert flagged the nanny situation to Diplomatic Security at the outset of the vetting process, and was assured it would not be a sufficient matter to derail her confirmation, the person said.

Fox News didn’t mention any of that in its reporting on her withdrawal. The FoxNews.com article totally accepted Nauert's “spend more time with family” excuse:

“I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary [Mike] Pompeo for the trust they placed in me for considering me for the position of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations," Nauer said in the statement. "However, the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration.

She went on to describe her time working in the administration as being "one of the highest honors of my life."

A State Department source told Fox News that the process, on top of traveling around the world and between Washington D.C., and New York to see family, grew to be too much.

Politico pointed out that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement suggested that Nauert will not remain at the State Department. He said, “I wish Heather nothing but the best in all of her future endeavors and know that she will continue to be a great representative of this nation in whatever role she finds herself.” However, Politico said it was unable to confirm her status, as of this writing. (See update below.)

Watch Chris Hayes discuss Nauert’s nomination below, from MSNBC’s March 14, 2018 All In.

11:30 PM Update: Apparently, Nauert is not expected to return to the State Department. Will she go back to Fox News?

Heather Nauert is not expected to return to her State Dept spokesman job, a source tells @jamiegangel.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 17, 2019