Dana Remus, the White House president’s top lawyer, announced she would step down next month after overseeing Biden’s efforts to set a record number of judges at the federal headquarters, including the successful confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson in the Supreme Court. Ms Remus will be replaced by Stuart Delri, her deputy in the White House. Ms Bottoms succeeds Cedric Richmond as the president’s ambassador to the community and businesses at a time when Biden is struggling with low turnout and his party faces the prospect of losing one or both houses of Congress in the autumn elections. . “Mayor Botoms understands that democracy means that government works for working families, for the people who are the backbone of this country,” Biden said in a statement. “Keisha,” he added, “is brilliant, honest, tough and has the integrity needed to represent our administration to the American public.” Mr Biden’s White House staff has been relatively stable since taking office. He continues to be led by Ron Klain, Chief of Staff, and three longtime advisors: Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed. None of the original members of his cabinet has left the administration. But a growing number of departures in recent weeks has added to the frustration in the West Wing as the president struggles with inflation, the war in Ukraine and a host of other difficult issues that have pushed his acceptance rate to about 40%. The latest moves are part of a series of staff transfers. In addition to Mr. Richmond, the president’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, and the Covid tsar, Jeffrey D. Zients, have recently left, as have several aides to Vice President Kamala Harris. Many Democrats speculate that there will be further change, especially if the midterm elections go as badly as they expect. Mr. Biden also brought Anita Dunn, a veteran Democrat communications consultant, back to the White House full time. And he took John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, to the National Security Council to help oversee foreign policy messages. Julie Rodriguez, director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, will also become Biden’s senior adviser, the White House said Wednesday. White House officials are preparing for the possibility of a barrage of incoming legal attacks by congressional committees if Republicans take control of Parliament or the Senate. Republicans have already promised to use the committees to investigate a number of Biden administration actions if they oversee congressional oversight next year. With Ms. Remus’s departure, the task of responding to these inquiries will be assigned to Mr. Delry, who served as the No. 3 Justice Department official during the Obama administration. He will be the first openly gay man to serve as a White House adviser. Mr Biden called Mr Delri a dedicated civil servant and commended Ms Remus, who had been advising him since the start of his presidential campaign. “I am very grateful for the service of Dana Remus, who has been an invaluable member of my senior staff for the past three years and has helped restore a culture of the rule of law,” the president said in a statement. White House officials said Ms Remus, who had a baby during the campaign, had told the president she wanted to serve in the White House for about a year. He ended up overcoming this term by several months. It is not uncommon for White House executives to step down after more than a year, but presidents often ask to do so early in an election year so that the new team can be in place before the vote that could lead to changes in Washington’s political dynamics. . Mr. Richmond, a former member of Parliament from Louisiana, recently left the White House to enter the private sector and take a position as a senior adviser on the Democratic National Committee. Tensions between the party’s activist progressive wing and its leadership proved provocative during his tenure in the White House. Ms. Bottoms will take on the role of Mr. Richmond as head of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Ms. Bottoms served a term as mayor of Atlanta and has drawn the country’s attention to the handling of protests following the assassination of George Floyd by police in 2020, which at times turned violent. She was an early supporter of Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, and he briefly considered her a possible candidate for vice president. He later turned down a cabinet post in the administration. Her appointment to White House staff was mentioned earlier by Axios, who said she intended to listen “more than anything else”. “It’s important that people feel that their voices are reflected and their voices are heard,” he told the news agency. Ms. Bottoms served as a judge and city councilor before being elected mayor in 2017, but chose not to run for a second term last year amid rising crime in Atlanta. Homicides there increased by 58 percent in 2020 and challengers accused her of not focusing enough on reducing crime. She gained national prominence when she spoke directly to protesters after Mr Floyd was assassinated, expressing her deep sorrow for the murder below the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, while reprimanding and telling protesters who had resorted to violence. to “leave Home.” Mr Biden praised her approach. “We saw her stand tall and speak openly in the summer of protests and pain,” she told a fundraiser last year. Ms Bottoms told Axios, “We have had some very difficult times, especially for African Americans in this country.” “These challenges are still very fresh and real to me,” he said. “And I live it every day: I live it as a black woman, I live it as a mother of four and I know where these challenges lie, but I also know where the opportunities are.”
