One of the State Department’s seven science envoys publicly resigned Wednesday morning, sharing his resignation letter on social media. In it, former science envoy Daniel Kammen spelled out the word “IMPEACH” in an acrostic as he recounted President Donald Trump’s controversial response to recent deadly violence in Charlottesville and the president’s failure to condemn those responsible.
A State Department science envoy resigns in a letter that spells out IMPEACH
It follows last week’s resignation letter that spelled out RESIST.
“My decision to resign is in response to your attacks on the core values of the United States,” writes Kammen, addressing Trump. He continues, arguing that the president’s failure to unequivocally rebuke white supremacists and neo-Nazis “enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans.”
Kammen also admonishes Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement and cites his own career-long commitment to public service, working for the Department of Energy, the EPA, and the State Department in various roles beginning in 1996.
In a move that echoes another recent public resignation letter, the first letter of each paragraph in Kammen’s letter spells out a message: “IMPEACH.” Last week, all 17 members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) submitted a resignation letter that also contained an acrostic spelling out “RESIST.”
Many on Twitter, including the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, quickly pointed out the acrostic:
Kammen, one of 18 scientists who have participated in the science envoy program since President Barack Obama created it in 2010, only had a month remaining in his post.
