Prosecutor Hand-Picked to Investigate President Obama's Enemies Quits Without Charging Anyone, Citing Pressure to Go Faster

WASHINGTON — The veteran prosecutor installed this spring to run a sprawling Justice Department investigation into President Obama's political adversaries resigned Thursday, having brought no charges, after clashing with department leadership over the pace of the effort and being advised that he had lost the confidence of his superiors.

Obama had for months made his impatience public, posting that indictments of the people he believes wronged him were taking too long and repeating the point in meetings with department leaders. The prosecutor's reported parting observation, that seeking indictments where the evidence is not yet there is an ethical problem, is the kind of sentence the other party would have engraved on a plaque had it been said about them.

The probe was run out of a Florida district before a judge widely regarded as friendly to the administration, staffed in part by lawyers drawn from the President's own political orbit. The Press's justice desk notes that this arrangement was, in the other party's telling, the definition of a 'weaponized' Justice Department, and in this party's telling, 'accountability.' The definitions are identical. The subject changed.

Supporters of the President said the departure showed the system working: a prosecutor who would not deliver was replaced. Critics said the same sentence, in a different tone of voice.

At press time the investigation continued, the indictments remained theoretical, and the White House was seeking someone who could locate them faster.