‘Vindicated,’ Gates will return to Huntington Beach city attorney’s office
- Share via
Huntington Beach appears ready to bring Michael Gates back to the city attorney’s office after a 10-month stint with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The City Council convened a special meeting Friday afternoon to discuss Gates’ employment, set after his lawyer threatened litigation if the city didn’t hire him following an Orange County Register report he was terminated from his DOJ job “for cause.”
The article’s claims contradicted Gates’ Nov. 8 announcement that he’d resigned to spend more time with his family. It further cited an unnamed source within the Justice Department who accused Gates of creating a hostile work environment for multiple women in his Washington, D.C. office.
The 50-year-old Gates denied those allegations and reiterated last week that he did, in fact, resign, suggesting Justice Department officials were angered by his leaving and retaliating against him.
After the City Council’s closed-door session Friday, Gates shared with the Daily Pilot an email from the office of the assistant attorney general.
Written by John Buchko, director of Operational Management for the Civil Rights Division, the email stated the division had rescinded his termination and would remove from Gates’ personnel record any previous reference to his being terminated.
Buchko’s message said Gates’ file would include an SF-50 form, reflecting that he voluntarily resigned from his position.
“Just got vindicated,” Gates said in a text message to The Pilot.
Session ends with no announcement
Gates was present earlier in the day to hear public comments made prior to the council’s two-hour closed session meeting. Forty people signed up to speak, with Mayor Pat Burns giving each of them just 30 seconds to do so.
Comments were divided between those who welcomed Gates back and those who questioned the wisdom in rehiring him after a seemingly messy DOJ exit.
Some speakers mentioned that during Gates’ time as city attorney, Huntington Beach paid $2.5 million in 2021 to settle a lawsuit after a pair of senior deputy city attorneys in his office alleged age discrimination.
After taking public testimony, councilmembers convened to closed session. When they emerged two hours later, City Atty. Mike Vigliotta, appointed to replace Gates after the latter took the federal job, said he had nothing to publicly report out of the discussion.
However, Councilmember Chad Williams said, while walking off the dais, “It’s a matter of fact that Michael Gates is hired with the city.”
Williams reiterated that outside City Hall, though he did not elaborate due to the closed-session nature of Friday’s discussions.
“There’s a valid contract,” Williams said.
Gates, who served more than 10 years as Huntington Beach’s elected city attorney, could begin his job as the chief assistant city attorney as soon as Monday.
He said in an interview after Friday’s meeting he was pleased to be back with the city.
“It’s a perfect fit for me, because I’ll be able to resume the cases that I had before,” he said. “I was hired on Nov. 7 — I have a signed agreement. So, the fact that they’re saying I’m hired now, it just reaffirms what I signed into.
“If they didn’t perform on the agreement that we already signed into, then there would have been a breach. It sounds like they just decided to perform on the contract, which is a good thing.”
Gates said he had conversations with councilmembers and Vigliotta about returning, as he was at home in Huntington Beach during the federal government shutdown.
A Republican backed by an all-MAGA City Council, Gates recently said he plans to run for city attorney again in 2026. He was first elected in 2014 and re-elected twice before resigning earlier this year to take the federal job.
In response to questions about whether he’d had undergo an application process to be rehired by the city, Gates said when an ex-employee is summoned back, the city is free to re-enter into a contract with that person.
“When [Vigliotta] was coming back from Orange [to take over for me as city attorney], it was the same exact process,” he added.
