How Yummy Is Eumi?
This post is even more random than usual. But it's Friday, and Mother Nature is going bonkers -- a major snowstorm in the Midwest, an epic typhoon in the Philippines -- so indulge us.
Some time ago, we characterized the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of California (San Francisco) as "well-regarded." But then John of The Legal Reader helpfully informed us that the office has slipped in recent years. He brought to our attention this fascinating feature, describing problems that have plagued the office under United States Attorney Kevin Ryan.
So we read the article, which was most enlightening. And after reading it, we were left with one conclusion:
EUMI CHOI IS FABULOUS.
Who is Eumi Choi? She's First Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District, the right-hand woman of U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan. But it seems that, despite her nominal status as Ryan's second-in-command, Choi is actually running the show, cracking the whip over the assistant U.S. attorneys while Ryan hides out in his office.
If someone were to make a movie about the N.D. Cal. office, Eumi Choi would be the "scene stealing" character. The role of Eumi would turn into a surprise star vehicle for Lucy Liu, en route to an improbable Oscar nomination.
We explain why Eumi is so yummy, after the jump.
Why do we love Eumi Choi so much? Based on what we've read about her, she's a tough, smart, no-nonsense prosecutrix. But instead of being your stereotypical, swaggering, white-male prosecutor, she's actually a woman of Asian-American descent. And there are few things we love more than dragon ladies strong Asian women. (Hi Mom!)
Some excerpts from the SF Weekly article:
After [Kevin] Ryan's relatively calm first year [as U.S. Attorney], the honeymoon ended in October 2003. That month, Ryan named Eumi Choi as his first assistant, a position with oversight of the criminal division and the narcotics task force, as well as the Oakland and San Jose branches.A federal prosecutor for six years in Washington, D.C., before she moved to San Francisco in 2000, Choi already supervised the civil, tax, and administrative divisions as the executive assistant U.S. Attorney. The dual managerial roles and Ryan's blessing gave her, in effect, carte blanche over the office.
Current and former prosecutors assert that, from the moment of her promotion, Choi clashed with supervisors and attorneys alike. Sources allege that she usurped the authority of division chiefs, forcing them to clear charging decisions with her and dictating case strategy. Section meetings, once free-flowing affairs in which managers and prosecutors swapped ideas, turned funereal, the staff loath to contradict Choi's edicts.
"It became all about following directions," a prosecutor says.
Magnificent. It's about time that an Asian female kicked some AUSA ass in San Francisco. Put them in their places, Eumi!
Pushing aside U.S. Attorney Ryan, Eumi seized the reins of power:
But after elevating Choi to first assistant, [Ryan] withdrew, ceding the day-to-day grind of running the office to her. He closed his open door, requiring attorneys who wanted to see him to arrange an appointment through his secretary, and meeting only if Choi also had time to attend."She's the gatekeeper," another ex-prosecutor says of Choi. "People have to go through or past her to talk to him."
Awesome. This power-hungry prosecutrix is doing a great job.
Our one suggestion to Eumi Choi: Take a page from the Jennifer Lopez playbook. Send around an office-wide email ordering all personnel, including assistant U.S. attorneys, never to make direct eye contact with you. Such a rule will psychologically cement your domination of the office. Brilliant!
This article obviously whetted our appetite for more information about this deliciously evil diva. But our half-assed Googling diligent research didn't produce much new information. The best we could do were these tidbits from a Mercury News article, "Five Things to Know About Eumi Choi" (link no longer working), :
1. She grew up in Huntington, W. Va., a college town.2. Her father, Soo Bok Choi, was awarded a U.S. Bronze Star for ground combat during the Korean War. He eventually became a professor at Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va.
3. She studied ballet and classical piano when she was a child and went to New York to study both.
4. She turned down a position in the Justice Department's anti-terrorism section in Washington to remain in Northern California.
5. As a West Virginia government lawyer in the mid-1980s, she went into coal mines to do safety inspections and investigations.
So we're still hungry for more juicy details about Eumi Choi. Can you help us? If you have any interesting gossip or funny anecdotes about Eumi Choi, please email us (subject line: "Eumi Choi"). If we receive enough tips about her, we'll do a more detailed write-up. We thank you in advance for your thoughts.
Untouchable: As U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan remains bunkered against criticism, who's minding the shop? [SF Weekly]
Ryan Faces Depo Over Bad-Snitch Case [The Recorder]
DOJ Reviewers Rap Ryan's Management [The Recorder]
Appointment of Eumi L. Choi as First Assistant United States Attorney [U.S. Department of Justice]
(4) Comments
I don't find the article persuasive in its criticisms. Before Ryan took over, 11 attorneys a year left; after he took over, 13 attorneys a year left. At the same time, N.D. Cal. cost of living skyrocketed, demand by private law firms for experienced criminal attorneys skyrocketed, PPP skyrocketed, a Republican administration that got less than 20% of the local vote took over for one sympatico with the N.D. Cal. landscape, and USAO salaries stayed level. It's amazing turnover isn't higher.
This post, like the SF Weekly article it references, was planted by a group of disgruntled (and racist) former and current AUSAs who constitute the best-coordinated insurgency outside of Iraq. They are a group of uppity Caucasians hell-bent on controlling the U.S. Attorney's Office. They hate Eumi because she is Asian -- and ergo, is not one of them. Note how this posting focuses on Eumi's race. Many of the insurgents' private talk about Eumi is also borderline racist -- e.g., referring her as "Dragon Lady." Interestingly, these insurgent AUSAs who now whine about having to "follow directions" were themselves the most autocratic dictators around during the Shapiro/Mueller administration, when THEY were in power. Even more interesting is how very little anyone discusses the impoverished morals of the insurgent AUSAs. Four of them had affairs with other AUSAs while married to other people. One of the harshest critics of Eumi and Kevin Ryan left his pregnant wife for another AUSA. Everyone is so fascinated by the fact of a powerful Asian female being under attack that nobody -- least of all the legal press, which is incapable of anything other than acting as a mouthpiece for the disgruntled -- has paid any heed to the fact that the Caucasian stonethrowers are themselves living in brittle glass houses.
"This post" is racist? Hardly.
This post does speak of race. However, that isn't enough to make it racist, especially given the tone of the race-oriented comments, and the point that the race connection is a presonal one for the author. (I'm assuming "hi, mom!" has meaning.)
And, chiming in on another point, I agree with "Ted" that the article left me with the impression that a bunch of lifer whiners, who likely (and I'm making this assumption out of my experiences with other USA offices which have undergone upper management shifts) do not share many philosophic or political views with Ryan and Choi, don't like the change in the office's prosecutarial direction.
It's probably good that long-term people are leaving in this situation The head - the USA - gets to set policy, and tone, and philosophy, for the office. If people don't buy in, they should be replaced with people who do. That holdovers from a different admin can undercut policy direction of an appointed USA is antidemocratic in the extreme.
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You guys think Eumi Choi is some kind of big bad ass kicking prosecutor? That's a joke. Ms. Choi is a timid lawyer who is afraid to try cases.
In 2000, my wife and I were victims of an armed robbery in Washington, D.C.. One of the two perpetrators was quickly caught by the police and identified as such by myself. I later I.D.'d the guy in a line-up. I then had to face the man again in a pretrial hearing to quash my identification of him -- the judge denied the motion and set the case in for trial. That's when the case got transferred to Ms. Choi.
She met with me and my wife on a Thursday to discuss the case; the next day, the prosecutor who has earlier been handling the case called me and told me Ms. Choi was going to dismiss the case -- which had been set for trial that Monday! Oh I raised holy hell with her bosses, but to no avail (I have the letters from Ms. Choi's boss -- the former U.S. Attorney for DC -- the letter is clearly ghost written by Ms. Choi). The man who had put a gun to my head and robbed me of my wallet had a long and violent criminal record and in all likelihood he would have plead guilty on the eve of trial (did I mention that I am a criminal defense lawyer?). But Ms. Choi either was lazy in that she did not want to work over the weekend or she was simply afraid to try a case before a jury, so she let the guy simply walk. (Ms. Choi's asserted reason for dismissing the case was some politically correct gobbly-gook that suggested that I was a serial mis-identifier of people of color).
Predictably, the man continued to deal drugs in front of schools, assault his girlfriends, escape from halfway houses -- this guy is a real piece of work. Ms. Choi, on the other hand, apparently had a nice soft landing in the US Atty's Office in SF.
If you are interested in seeing the letters back and forth on this case, let me know. I'm sure you will find them interesting, and maybe you'll reconsider your view of Ms. Choi as some sort of law and order tough.
Andrew P. McGuire, Esq
Washington, D.C.