Another Brick in the Wall: Kamala Harris Loses Сhief of Staff Amid Exodus From Administration

US vice-president Kamala Harris' chief of staff Tina Flournoy is leaving her position and will be replaced by veteran White House staffer Lorraine Voles, the White House has announced. The reason for the 65-year-old’s departure was not given.

Harris stressed in a statement on Thursday that Flournoy “has been a valued adviser and confidante” to her “and a tremendous leader for the office”.

“From Day One, she led our team during a historic first year as we made progress rebuilding our economy here at home and our alliances around the world. Tina is the consummate public servant and I will continue to rely on her advice, counsel and friendship,” the statement read.

In an email to staff obtained by CNN, Flournoy, for her part, underscored that she was “eternally grateful to the vice-president for giving” her “this amazing opportunity”.

“It had been my intention to speak to all of you individually to let you know that I will soon be leaving the vice-president's Office and my role as chief of staff”, her email read.

Flournoy is the latest in a spate of departures from the vice -president's office over the past 15 months, amid media reports about a toxic environment in which the VP’s staffers had been working.

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A June 2021 report by Politico claimed that Flournoy’s efforts to protect Harris from criticism led to her ignoring staff ideas, refusing to delegate responsibility, and unnecessarily prolonging decisions and blaming those under her for negative results.

“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment. It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s**t,” Politico cited an unnamed source as saying.

Other insiders blamed Harris herself, arguing that similar work environments existed when she served as a senator from California and the Golden State’s attorney-general. Harris was slammed by her former aides as an office “bully” with a “soul-destroying” management style.

As for Flournoy’s announcement to quit, it comes a few weeks after former White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany described the exodus of staffers from the office of US vice-president Kamala Harris as "abnormal," adding that it could not be explained by mere “White House burnout”. McEnany told Fox News that during her tenure, she doesn’t recall “any major figure leaving vice-president [Mike] Pence's office”.

The high-profile aides who have already left Harris’s office include chief spokesman Symone Sanders, deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh, director of digital strategies Rajun Kaur, and director of advance Karly Satkowiak.