Global Courant 2023-05-05 02:25:07
A controversial George Soros-funded St. Louis prosecutor resigned Thursday amid a legal effort by the Missouri attorney general to have her fired for alleged neglect of her duties.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, the city’s top prosecutor, is stepping down after repeated, bipartisan calls for her firing from officials across Missouri.
Gardner’s office tweeted Gardner’s letter of resignation, which was addressed to the people of St. Louis.
Gardner is one of the first progressive prosecutors to fund Soros, a liberal billionaire and Democrat mega-donor, in 2016 and again for her 2020 reelection. She announced last month that she is seeking a third term.
For years, Gardner’s office was criticized for mishandling cases and dysfunction of the office. The final straw for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey came in February, when a teenage volleyball player visiting St. Louis with her team was hit by a car and lost both her legs.
A man was charged with assault, armed criminal action and operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver’s license in the accident. He was out on bail awaiting trial for a separate armed robbery charge, despite violating the terms of his bail on dozens of occasions.
In a January 13, 2020 file photo, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jim Salter)
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Gardner argued that her office had tried to put the suspect back in jail, but a judge denied their request. However, there are no court documents from her office, which local reports say is responsible for monitoring compliance with bond terms and withdrawing them when those terms are violated.
In the aftermath of the incident, Bailey filed a petition quo warranto, the legal mechanism under state law that allows the attorney general to fire a prosecutor who neglects his duties.
Bailey claims that nearly 12,000 criminal cases have been dismissed into what he calls Gardner’s failures. He also says that more than 9,000 cases were dismissed because they were about to go to trial, forcing judges to dismiss more than 2,000 cases due to what Bailey described as a failure to provide evidence and speedy trials to the defendants.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, right, and Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard law professor, arrive at the Civil Courts Building on May 14, 2018. (Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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Gardner had refused to step down from office, calling Bailey’s efforts a political “witch hunt” and a form of “voter suppression”. She also suggested that racism and sexism are to blame for some of the criticism leveled at her.
A judge in St. Louis had set a tentative trial date for September 25 to hear arguments from both sides.
Meanwhile, Gardner’s office is facing two contempt of court suits after prosecutors failed to appear for multiple court dates. In a contempt case, a Missouri judge said Gardgern had “complete indifference and a conscious disregard for the judicial process” and called her office a “motionless ship of chaos.”
George Soros delivers a speech at the 2023 Munich security conference. (Open Society Foundations/YouTube/video screenshot)
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It is unclear whether the contempt hearings will be dropped, or how Bailey will react to Gardner’s resignation.
Several assistant prosecutors recently resigned from Garner’s long-understaffed office, which was plagued by ongoing staffing problems that caused low morale and a dysfunctional work environment.
Gardner’s tenure was riddled with allegations of misconduct and mishandled cases long before her final legal issues. In one case, she was publicly reprimanded and fined by the Missouri Supreme Court.
More generally, Gardner has come under scrutiny for what critics have viewed as soft-on-crime policies.
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Gardner was St. Louis’s first black chief prosecutor. Fox News Digital has reached out to its office for comment.
Aaron Kliegman is a political reporter for Fox News Digital.
