First Blood

Not a few hours had passed and the Troopergate IG report already has its first victim.

Thomas Hunter, a deputy director and communications director at the Ohio Department of Public Safety, submitted his resignation today.

Hunter, who has worked for the department since 2007, said he is accepting a private-sector job in West Virginia, where he formerly served as press secretary to Gov. Joe Manchin III.

Now clearly Hunter already had a gig lined up, so it's apparent that the IG report wasn't necessarily responsible for his leaving. But it does make one wonder if Hunter, as a communications guru, had grown frustrated with DPS and wanted to make a big splash when he left. If he wanted his exit to make the news, he knew how to do it, and picking yesterday as the day to resign could not have been a coincidence.

So that begs the question, are things so bad at DPS that higher ups are jumping ship?

No one wants to be known as the person that went down with Cathy Collins-Taylor.