August 23, 2017

United States Science Envoy Resigns After Donald Trump’s Charlottesville Response

Is there a hidden message in his announcement?

Alex Brandon/AP

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The fallout from President Donald Trump’s equivocal response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, continues this week, with the resignation of US Science Envoy Daniel Kammen.

“Acts and words matter,” Kammen wrote in a letter announcing his decision. “To continue in my role under your administration would be inconsistent with the United States Oath of Allegiance to which I adhere.”

The president has been under fierce criticism for his claim that “many sides” were responsible for the “Unite the Right Rally” in Charlottesville earlier this month, where one woman was killed and 19 injured after a white supremacist drove through a crowd of counter-protesters. Amid the backlash, many members of the president’s various advisory councils, along with all 16 members of the White House Arts Committee, have resigned to protest Trump’s response.

During a deeply divisive rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Tuesday evening, Trump appeared defiant, lashing out at his critics who have condemned the explosive remarks.

Kammen’s decision to step down from the State Department post on Tuesday joined the growing condemnation. It also appeared to include an anagram containing a blunt message: taken together, the first letters of the first sentence of each of the paragraphs spell “I M P E A C H.”

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