Donald Trump’s White House continues to hemorrhage staff as USPTO Director resigns

At this point Donald Trump’s White House has no Communications Director, no FBI Director, and perhaps soon to be no Attorney General, with Jeff Sessions offering his resignation (link). There’s also buzz that Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer only still have their jobs because no one is willing to take over those jobs. And now comes another important exodus.

United States Patent and Trademark Office Director Michelle Lee has resigned today, according to The Hill (link), after months of back and forth about whether or not she would stay or quit. Trump’s White House had been so obtuse about Lee’s job security that some were unsure whether she was even still on the job, leading at one point to a Freedom of Information Act request.

This now represents yet another vacant high ranking position that Donald Trump’s White House is unlikely to be able to fill any time soon, both due to its inability to competently conduct job searches, and because no one seems to want to go to work for an administration that’s seen as chaotic and corrupt and failing. Throw in Trump’s unwillingness to listen to the people who have been willing to go to work for him, and it’s created a perfectly toxic hiring environment that’s unlikely to improve any time soon.

Presumably, someone already working at the USPTO will be named acting Director for now. But even that fallback has become a problematic matter for the Donald Trump administration. For instance, with Trump having gone months without putting a U.S. Ambassador to China in place, a Deputy Ambassador to China had been filling the job. But the deputy resigned in protest yesterday (link), raising questions over whether anyone at all is officially liaising with the Chinese government at this moment on behalf of the United States.