I have a neighbor who has to travel from NY to FL for some kind of medical treatment that's only available in a few places and that's the nearest.
I have a son who took a dream job and within a couple of months the company did an internal re-organization and it became a nightmare job.
There are a million reasonable reasons why Cliff might have suddenly left his position for good cause. You're not having any of them, so be it. I think, though, it's not nearly the big deal you make it.
I'm way more worried about having all of our VLN eggs in the FDA basket. There have been a couple of reports recently, in newspaper and on radio, about just how dysfunctional of an organization it is. And being a part of the most corrupt administration in US history creates a perfect storm of bad things that might happen.
"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into"- Oliver Hardy.