A line in Carrie Johnson’s Washington Post story about Deputy Attorney General David Ogden’s resignation caught our eye.
She wrote:
One legal source said Ogden had reached out to the WilmerHale firm Tuesday evening, asking whether he would be welcomed back, and that he received a positive reply in “record time” from the firm’s leaders.
This makes us wonder how hasty the resignation was.
On Wednesday, a former Justice Department official told us that “everyone was talking” about Ogden, and that there was widespread dissatisfaction with how the department was being managed. Another person close to the White House and Justice Department told us Thursday that Ogden had offered his resignation Wednesday morning.
While there doesn’t appear to be any one incident that prompted it, it’s odd that Ogden waited until Tuesday to confirm he could return to WilmerHale, where he’d been co-chair of the government and regulatory litigation practice group. That suggests the transition wasn’t as orderly as portrayed in the Justice Department’s news release today.
The AP’s Devlin Barrett reported that Attorney General Eric Holder had asked Ogden to depart.
While we were unable to confirm Ogden’s resignation on Wednesday, no one at Justice waved us off the idea. Maybe more will become clear in coming days.
