US academic resigns as science envoy and hides secret 'impeach' message to Donald Trump in resignation letter

Another week, another resignation.

This time it is one of the State Department’s science envoys who has publicly resigned over Donald Trump’s response to violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, and like some other resignations it came with a not-so-hidden message in the text.

Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkely, posted a letter to Twitter saying Mr Trump’s failure to denounce neo-Nazis and the far-Right was part of a disturbing pattern .

"Your failure to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis has domestic and international ramifications," he wrote.

"Particularly troubling to me is how your response to Charlottesville is consistent with a broader pattern of behaviour that enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans, the global community and the planet."

Prof Kammen also criticised the decision to leave the Paris climate accords and offered a more subtle message buried in the words. The first letters of each paragraph spelled out the word “IMPEACH”.

Mr Trump has suffered a barrage of high-profile resignations during the past fortnight.

Last week a wave of chief executives announced they were leaving White House advisory committees, which were then promptly disbanded. And members of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities used their joint resignation letter to spell out “RESIST”, a rallying cry for Mr Trump’s opponents, in the first letter of each paragraph.

The president’s troubles stemmed from his decision last week to say left-wing counter-protesters were just as much to blame for violence as white supremacists and white nationalists.

A State Department spokeswoman said Prof Kammen’s resignation was a personal decision.

"We appreciate his dedicated service to US scientific diplomacy," she said.