Just after midnight Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced the firing of some high-profile presidential appointees including Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, from the President’s Export Council.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was removing over 1,000 presidential appointees made by the previous administration.
“My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Trump wrote.
Trump stated that apart from Lance Bottoms, he had removed Chef José Andrés from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition; retired General Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council; and former State Department official Brian Hook from the board of the Wilson Center.
“Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon,” Trump said.
However, Bottoms shared on Instagram that she had already resigned before Trump’s announcement.
“A day late and a dollar short…. My resignation from the President’s Export Council was submitted January 4, effective yesterday. You can’t fire someone who has already resigned,” Bottoms wrote.
Before starting a career in politics, Bottoms worked as a prosecutor and represented children in juvenile court. She became a magistrate judge in Atlanta in 2002 and was elected as a Fulton County Superior Court judge in 2008 before serving as an Atlanta City Council member from 2010 to 2018.
Biden appointed her to the President’s Export Council in July 2023, which generally advises the President on government policies and programs that affect U.S. trade.
It is not uncommon to see a new administration removing appointees from a previous administration.
Former President Biden also removed many Trump appointees after taking office, including former press secretary Sean Spicer from the board overseeing the U.S. Naval Academy.
