Byung “BJay” Pak, appointed by Trump who has worked at the office since 2017, left his job abruptly on Monday as a US attorney for the Northern Georgia District, which includes Atlanta and Fulton County, citing “unforeseen circumstances” in a memo to the team.
Pak’s departure comes after a phone call over the weekend when Trump pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to “find” votes to overturn the state election, which he lost to President-elect Joe Biden .
The Justice Department said South Georgia District Attorney Bobby Christine, who has also been appointed by Trump and has been in office since 2017, will take over as interim chief in Atlanta, assuming both roles.
“On January 4, 2021, by written order from the president, Bobby was appointed United States interim prosecutor for the Northern District of Georgia,” said Christine’s biography on the Department of Justice website.
It is not clear why Pak left several days before his previously planned departure or why the White House intervened to instill leadership in the office instead of allowing an experienced deputy to take over temporarily, as is most typical for the end of a government.
The assistant attorney general in the Atlanta office, Kurt Erskine, would normally have assumed the role of acting attorney general, but was passed over in Christine’s place. Erskine declined to comment on Tuesday.
A spokesman for Northern Georgia District did not provide further information about Pak’s departure.
Sources familiar with him say that Pak, a former Georgia state representative and white-collar defense lawyer, has been talking to big law firms about joining them and plans to leave his office to work as a lawyer in no time. But his immediate departure was a surprise on Monday, even for those who know him.
In a Justice Department statement on Monday announcing his resignation, Pak said he was grateful to Trump for the opportunity to serve and thanked former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions.
“It was the greatest honor of my professional career to have served my fellow citizens as a US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia,” he said. “I did my best to be considerate and consistent and to provide justice to my fellow citizens in a fair, effective and efficient way.”
Until now, Christine had not been as well known as Pak – because the Atlanta federal prosecutor’s office tends to outshine other law enforcement officials in the state.
CNN’s Pamela Brown contributed to this report.