The following quoted material is a post by UPI intelligence corespondent Richard Sale on Ret. Colonel W. Patrick Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis blog. Sale does not reveal any of his sources, so there are questions about its accuracy.

Contrary to the bland stories in The New York Times and Washington Post of Friday, Negroponte did not go voluntarily to State from his job as director of intelligence. In fact, there was tremendous administration pressure to get him out of his current job. The chief cause of the quarrel involved Negroponte's balking at at request from Vice President Cheney to increase domestic collection by the National Security Agency on U.S. citizens.

Well, this is certainly interesting.

Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007: Sale on Negroponte Move