Atlanta U.S. attorney, appointed by Trump amid post-election pressure campaign, resigns
By Matt Zapotosky,
The federal prosecutor tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the Atlanta U.S. Attorney’s Office during Trump’s failed bid to overturn the election has resigned from that post, a spokesman confirmed Monday.
Bobby Christine, a former local prosecutor and magistrate court judge, had been appointed by Trump as the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia after fellow Trump appointee Byung J. “Bjay” Pak suddenly resigned Jan. 4.
The move raised questions of possible political interference, as Trump bypassed Pak’s deputy — who would otherwise have taken over as acting U.S. attorney by default — to install an official who was leading the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Georgia. At the time, Trump was pressing officials in the state to support his unfounded claims of voter fraud, and Christine brought with him to Atlanta two prosecutors who had been assigned to monitor election malfeasance.
Christine will remain as the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Georgia, a post Trump appointed him to in 2017, officials said. Kurt Erskine, who had been Pak’s deputy, will take over in Atlanta on an acting basis, a spokesman for that office said. The Justice Department has previously told employees that President Biden’s administration had asked Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys who remained after the inauguration to stay on “for the time being.”
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating the circumstances surrounding Pak’s departure and conducting a broad review of whether any current or former department officials tried to improperly “alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.”
People familiar with the matter have said Pak resigned after a senior Justice Department official in Washington led him to believe he should do so. Around the same time, Trump was entertaining a plan to replace his acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, with another department official more amenable to supporting his fraud claims. He was persuaded not to do so after officials threatened to resign en masse, people familiar with the matter have said.
If Christine had plans to support Trump’s claims, the effort seemed never to truly get off the ground. A week after replacing Pak, he told staff members “there’s just nothing to” the few claims of fraud the Atlanta office was examining, and the prosecutors he brought with him departed.
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