Two More White House Press Office Staffers Are Departing: Karine Jean-Pierre

U.S. President Joe Biden walks next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) as he arrives for a visit in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 20, 2023. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced that two more White House staffers will leave their positions. Press assistant Megha Bhattacharya and her assistant and Chief of Staff Robbie Dornbush both have made their resignations official.

The press secretary made the announcement during a Feb. 23 press briefing, calling both departing staffers “valued members” of their communications team:

“We have another bittersweet day for us, for the White House press team, as this is the last press briefing for Megha and Robbie ... who are valued members of our team,” Jean-Pierre said.

“Megha has yelled ‘Thank you, press’ in every room of the White House and on three different continents.” Jean-Pierre went on. “She’s done it all with grace, a great sense of humor, and grade-A outfits.”

Bhattacharya joined the White House staff in February 2022, giving her a little over a year’s worth of experience on the press team, compared with Dornbush’s nine-month stint.

“As Chief of Staff for the press office, Robbie quite literally keeps the trains running. He’s the bridge between myself and many of you in the room,” Jean-Pierre said. She praised his work ethic and said he would be missed.

Bhattacharya is taking a job at the State Department, the press secretary said. She did not reveal Dornbush’s future plans.

The White House did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.

This announcement comes less than a month after President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, announced on Jan. 27 that he would step down.

Klain was replaced just after the State of the Union address on Feb. 7 by Jeff Zients, as The Epoch Times previously reported.

Biden praised Klain, saying that he “knows how government works, how politics works, how Congress and the White House work. He assembled the most diverse and the most talented White House team in history and leaned on them to solve impossible challenges.”

Last summer, the “Great Resignation” was said to have hit the White House around the time Jean-Pierre had to deliver three on-camera goodbyes to departing staffers in less than 24 hours.

During that period, two-thirds of the White House press staff, a considerable portion of the COVID-19 response team, two deputy counsels to the president, and the staffer who manages the White House Twitter account left within a few weeks of each other.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.