DOJ Official bails out

Update: The AP reports:

The department also said that Michael Battle — a senior Justice official who directed the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and who had personally informed the ousted U.S. attorneys of their removal — would leave his post March 16.

Battle, who has held his post since June 2005, notified U.S. attorneys of his decision in January and had informed the department last summer that he wished to pursue opportunities in the private sector, the department said. Battle was not involved in the actual decision-making that led to the prosecutors' ouster, the department said.

"His departure is not connected to the U.S. attorney controversy whatsoever," Roehrkasse said.

Update on Battle:

The original report from Fox News on Michael Battle's resignation is now up on their website.
In it, Jonathan Hunt reports that Battle is resigning and that he "made that decision and sent out an internal email about a month ago." Hunt reported that the email had been confirmed to Fox "from three separate sources," but that the resignation had not been "publicly announced by the Department of Justice."

Battle, a former U.S. attorney himself, was the DoJ official who actually made the calls to fire six federal prosecutors back in early December. Hunt reports that one fired prosecutor told him "Mr. Battle seemed unhappy about having to make those calls."

The Washington Post has reported that "Battle was apologetic but offered little in the way of explanations during the calls, telling some that the order had come from 'on high.'" He told one prosecutor, according to Salon, "It's hard not to think you did something wrong when you get a call like this, but that's not always the case."