Former Huntington Beach City Attorney General Michael Gates will begin serving as its chief assistant city attorney Nov. 24 after being a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
“After much prayer, thought and deliberation, I have decided I must submit my resignation,” Gates wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pamela Bondi dated Saturday and shared by Gates on social media.
“Please know it has been an honor of a lifetime to work with you and the Trump administration these 10 months … and afforded the opportunity to serve the nation in this way.”
Gates wrote his resignation was “the best decision for me and my family.”
Gates called it “such a privilege to work earnestly with my attorney teams from Day 1 to protect our military service members by prioritizing enforcement of the Service Members Civil Relief Act, to put American workers first by reviving the Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, to dismiss Biden-era weaponization cases, to begin vigorous enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act to clean voter rolls for future elections and to work to restore the faith of the American people in our justice system.
“It was also a particular honor to personally argue important cases in federal court, including the Free Exercise of Religion Case against Washington state and to defend the president’s executive order to protect the integrity of American elections in Washington D.C. District Court.”
The City Council appointed Michael Vigliotta to succeed Gates in January. Vigliotta had been Orange’s city attorney immediately before his appointment, and prior to that he had worked nearly 18 years in the Huntington Beach City Attorney’s Office.
Gates was elected to the first of his three terms as Huntington Beach city attorney in 2014.
Except that he didn’t “resign”. He was fired. Gates was “terminated for cause” from the position, according to his SF-52 form, an employment document utilized by the federal government. The form said the action was authorized by Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who oversees the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He was accused of creating a hostile work environment for multiple women in the office with whom he worked, according to a Justice Department source who was not among those who complained about Gates. He allegedly had a “consistent pattern” of referring to female colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names, the source said, and complained about the employment of a woman who was pregnant.