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On November 18th, Chris Christie dropped a minor bombshell - he said he would give up his US Attorney seat effective December 1. This is strange timing - and incredibly fast - for a US Attorney to turn over his office.
As for the time-line - it's barely two weeks, and one of those weeks is Thanksgiving. Anyone who has been around a government office on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving knows that there are only two work days that week. So we are talking about roughly seven work days to turn over the entire US Attorney's office. That's fast. Even if you have an assistant that knows what's going on, that's fast. Consider for comparison that David Inglesias, who was fired, announced he would leave "in the next few months". Apparently, he expected it to take months, not weeks, to turn over the reins of his job. Why would Christie's job be any easier to turn over?
And the timing - sure it's good for the family to have Thanksgiving and Christmas, but what about the agency you are leaving? They get everything dumped on an assistant in December, then in January a new boss will come in and overhaul everything. Instead of a steady, slow transfer of power, you get two jerking, heaving movements within sixty days. And it's difficult not to notice that the list of NJ US Attorneys contains only one name of someone who filled the job because of the "Vacancy Reform Act". The current one. Now, to be fair, that law has only beeen effective since 1998 - but that means that neither Christie's predecessor, Robert Cleary, nor his predecessor, Faith Hochberg, left their office in such a lurch.
Why would Chris Christie do such a thing? Particularly if, as Christie's reputation would seem to say, he has such a stick in his butt for corruption and the investigation into Ferriero/BCDO - which has the potential to completely overhaul Jersey politics - is in its infancy? And why not hang around and get some credit for the terrorism trial of the Fort Dix terrorists? Let's be clear that jumping ship before the end of your term is not typical US Attorney behavior: At least 54 U.S. attorneys appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate left office before completion of a four-year term between 1981 and 2006 (not counting those whose tenure was interrupted by a change in presidential administration). Of those 54, 17 left to become Article III federal judges, one left to become a federal magistrate judge, six left to serve in other positions in the executive branch, four sought elective office, two left to serve in state government, one died, and 15 left to enter or return to private practice.
Of the remaining eight U.S. attorneys who left before completing a four-year term without a change in presidential administration, two were apparently dismissed by the President, and three apparently resigned after news reports indicated they had
engaged in questionable personal actions. No information was available on the three remaining U.S. attorneys who resigned.
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