Yet another resignation from the Justice Department. Wan Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, announced today that he’ll be leaving at the end of the month, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
Kim took the helm at the troubled Civil Rights Division in late 2005, just at the tail end of the stormiest period in the Division, when lawyers left the voting rights section, and other sections, in droves. Kim, like his predecessor, Alex Acosta, has never been anywhere near as controversial a figure as Division appointees Bradley Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, the two fingered by former Department lawyers as leading efforts to politicize the Division, the voting section in particular.
Nevertheless, the Division continued in the direction set by the prior Bush years under Kim’s direction, often pursuing causes favored by conservatives (such as religious discrimination and human trafficking) to the detriment of the Division’s traditional emphasis (such as protecting African-Americans from discrimination).
Kim follows a flurry of senior resignations in the past few months, including former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, his chief of staff Michael Elston, White House liaison Monica Goodling, chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer, and [Bradley] Schlozman, who had moved to a spot in the office that oversees U.S. attorneys.
Um, today is August 23. The "end of the month," August 31, is approximately 6 business days away.
Where I come from in the business world, when a top executive quits with less than a month’s notice, he’s trying to hide something, usually the imminent collapse of his business unit. When a top executive quits with less than two week’s notice, that thing he’s hiding may involve legal repercussions.
Mr. Kim is getting out of Dodge in an awfully big hurry.
You know, for a Department that’s done absolutely nothing wrong, they sure are leaving like rats jumping off a sinking ship. And, as emptywheel points out, Mr. Kim [a career staffer], is in a really big hurry to leave. Except for the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the lifespan of a DOJ official is like a seventeen year Cicada – very short. Who’s left besides Gonzales and the Janitorial Staff? It looks to me like everyone involved flown the coop – including the ones at the White House [Sara Taylor, Harriet Miers, Karl Rove]. I guess their U.S. Attorney Plan didn’t work out so well…
Can you pick the one that’s still there?
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