Troubling Development as US Attorney for Northern District of Georgia Resigns Today -- Effective Immediately

Former US Attorney Byung Pak

This gives me a bit of heartburn.

There are few details known at this time, although the resignation of US Attorney Byung “BJay” Pak is now being reported on widely across various liberal media outlets.

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Talkingpointsmemo received a copy of an internal email sent to the staff in the US Attorney’s Office, in which Pak cited “unforeseen circumstances” as prompting his immediate resignation.  It was previously reported that he would stay in place through January 20, 2021.

Prior to being named as US Attorney, Pak had served six terms as a Georgia statehouse member representing a suburban Atlanta district in Gwinnett County.  Prior to running for office, Pak had been an Assistant United States Attorney in Atlanta, and amassed an impressive résumé as a prosecutor, specializing in white-collar cases, including having prosecuted a group of individuals who had stolen trade secret information from Coca-Cola and attempted to sell it to PepsiCo.

In addition to being an attorney, Pak is a CPA.  From my research about him from last fall, I came away impressed by both his legal and legislative careers.  He is regarded in GOP circles in Georgia as a “star” on the rise, with a very bright career in elected politics if he chooses to go that route.

His immediate resignation today comes on the heels of the contentious telephone conference on Saturday between President Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.  At this point, there is no evidence that the two events are connected, but the timing of the resignation is troubling.

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By announcing the decision today, Pak gives life to the idea that he was asked to do something with which he disagreed, and his only honorable response was to resign his position rather than follow the direction he was given.  During the course of the call on Saturday, there were issues raised about the refusal of the Georgia Secretary of State to share information it has with the Trump campaign that bears on the issue of the validity of certain classes of voters who cast votes on Nov. 3.  At the conclusion of the call it was far from certain that the Georgia officials would agree to the requests that were made, and I’m certain that at some point in the past 48 hours their decision on that topic has been made and communicated to the President’s attorneys on the case. The fact that Sec. of State Raffensperger ran to media outlets like ABC News to complain about the Saturday call strongly hints about the outcome of those discussions.

So, my wild-ass guess is that it was somehow communicated to Pak that a grand jury subpoena might serve as an effective tool in extracting the information from the Georgia officials that they were not willingly agreeing to provide.

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Of all the subjects raised during the course of the discussion on Saturday, the one that would most directly implicate federal law are the allegations about misconduct inside the counting room at the State Farm Arena.  In discussing that issue, Raffensperger and the other Georgia officials said on the call that investigators from the Secretary of State’s Office, along with Georgia Bureau of Investigations’ agents — AND ONE FBI AGENT — had looked into the events that evening and the video that has been published.  They claimed that the result of the investigation was that no suspicious activity had in fact occurred notwithstanding what seems to be shown on the video.

President Trump’s attorneys on the call pointed out that if there are reports documenting the outcome of the investigation, Georgia should share those with the campaign.

As the President and others pointed out in the call, the number of ballots that seem to have been counted more than one time as shown on the video would be more than enough to switch the outcome in the race if what was happening was that Biden votes were being counted multiple times.

If Pak was requested or directed to open a federal grand jury investigation in the final two weeks of the Trump Administration in order to obtain the reports with a grand jury subpoena, given how close in time this would be to the matter being discussed during the call on Saturday, that likely made Pak very uncomfortable.  As noted, he still hopes to have a career in elective politics in Georgia.  Getting his hands “dirty” in this political fight between the Trump White House and Georgia state GOP officials, would certainly complicate any such career in the Peach State.  And for what end?

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Again, that is all just informed speculation.

Maybe he was offered the position of CEO of Coca-Cola on the condition that he start tomorrow.

 

 

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