Marcy Wheeler, one of the all-star launch line-up of Pierre Omidyar's "The Intercept" has left her role as senior policy analyst at the site, even before it has officially launched.

According to Capital New York, which first broke the news, "Wheeler, who writes regularly about national security and civil liberties on her blog, has only published one article to date on the First Look Media."

The departure comes after criticism (mainly from Pando, it should be noted) over Omidyar's donations to Ukraine opposition groups and also the Intercept's lack of updates in recent weeks. As I wrote here, Wheeler's output had largely been limited to her own blog, Empty Wheel, and she appeared to have quietly dropped the Intercept from her official bio on other sites.

Confirming her departure, Wheeler wrote on Empty Wheel this morning:

To anticipate questions some may ask, my departure from The Intercept doesn’t relate to anything I wrote or didn’t write about Ukraine. It did not relate to the downtime The Intercept just took (and seems to be coming out of). The reasons for my departure predate both of those things, to January.