It Takes Guts to Quit on Principle
In praise of those who stood up to the Trump administration.
EVERY CATASTROPHE CREATES OPPORTUNITIES for heroism. While some people seek to protect themselves—an understandable impulse—others display the uncommon courage it takes to face down the danger and do what they know to be right.
The unfolding catastrophe that is Donald Trump’s second stint as president has already produced its fair share of heroes—people who have refused to go along with illegal orders, unethical directives, raging incompetence, and the wholesale dismantling of agencies and institutions.
When history takes note of the damage done by Trump and his henchpeople, let it also reflect that, from the very beginning, his reign of error was opposed by conscientious professionals within the federal government, often at great personal cost. Here are some of the most notable:
Danielle Sassoon, Hagan Scotten, et al.
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York
Sassoon, the acting head of this office, resigned on February 12 rather than carry out orders to dismiss a carefully built corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. That was followed, in rapid succession, by the resignations of six other prosecutors—John Keller, Kevin Driscoll, Rob Heberle, Jenn Clarke, Marco Palmieri, and Hagan Scotten.
The orders came from then–acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a Trump appointee who worked previously as a criminal defense attorney for Trump. Bove was trying to gain leverage on Adams to force his cooperation with the president’s immigration policy. He lashed out at Sassoon for not doing as she was told: “The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination.”
Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney, stressed in his resignation letter to Bove the impropriety of what office’s prosecutors were being asked to do: “No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.” But, he added, “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion.” (The order was eventually signed by Bove himself, along with prosecutors Antoinette Bacon and Edward Sullivan, who apparently met the requisite standard.)
But in dismissing the charges as requested on April 2, U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho did so “with prejudice,” meaning they cannot be refiled, thus robbing the Justice Department of the ability it sought to keep this option available for leverage, just in case Adams is not fully cooperative.
“Dismissing the case without prejudice,” Ho wrote, “would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration.”
Ryan Crosswell
Department of Justice
On February 17, this Justice Department trial attorney with a decade of experience resigned after being asked by acting Deputy AG Bove to “identify two Trial Attorneys to sign a motion to dismiss the indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams without prejudice.” He said Bove admitted that this course of action was chosen “without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.”
Crosswell, in his resignation letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, also said Bove “made clear that there would be professional consequences if the motion was not filed, referencing the actions he took against the career prosecutors in the Southern District of New York who refused to carry out his orders.” He said Bove demanded their acquiescence “to add legitimacy to a motion that he admitted was not based on the facts or the law.”
In response, Crosswell said he loved his job and his colleagues “whose integrity and courage reflects the Department’s best traditions and gives me hope for our section’s future.” However, “I cannot work for someone who invokes leadership after forcing dedicated public servants to choose between termination and a dismissal so plainly at odds with core prosecutorial principles.”
In a statement issued in response to Crosswell’s departure, Bove said Justice Department attorneys should be committed to supporting “our critical mission”—adding that, for anyone having trouble getting with this program, “templates for resignation letters” are widely available online.
Denise Cheung
Department of Justice
This longtime federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia resigned February 18 rather than launch a prosecution that was unsupported by evidence. Cheung, head of the office’s criminal division, wrote in her resignation letter that Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for D.C., had asked her to step down after she refused to “to open a criminal investigation into whether a contract had been unlawfully awarded by an executive agency,” which included putting a freeze on the contractor’s assets. This was all part of an effort spearheaded by Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin to recoup some $20 billion in grants awarded for clean-energy and other environmental projects under the Biden administration by claiming they were somehow illegal.
A Department of Justice spokesperson attacked Cheung, saying that “refusing a basic request to pause an investigation so officials can examine the potential waste of government funds is not an act of heroism—just a failure to follow [the] chain of command.”
Thomas Corry
Department of Health and Human Services
Formerly a top spokesperson for the nation’s health overseer, Corry announced on March 3 that he was stepping down—reportedly in protest after clashing with the agency’s new head, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over his dangerous response to a measles outbreak. Corry’s resignation came just days after Kennedy falsely claimed that the outbreak in Texas was “not unusual,” saying, “We have measles outbreaks every year.” West Texas was in the midst of the largest measles outbreak in thirty years, caused in no small part by declining vaccination rates for which Kennedy bears personal responsibility.
Corry has not spoken publicly about his reasons for resigning. Kennedy went on Fox News to defame Corry, claiming he “was about to be terminated, and so they may have made up a story to explain their termination.”
Jim Jones
Food and Drug Administration
The head of the FDA’s food division resigned February 17, saying the “indiscriminate firing” of dozens of his employees under Secretary Kennedy made it “fruitless for me to continue.” In his resignation letter, Jones also cited “the Trump administration’s disdain for the very people necessary to implement your agenda.”
While the FDA has not commented on Jones’s resignation in particular, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt opined that some “bureaucrats” are resistant to the administration’s mandate and emphasized that President Trump seeks “the best and most qualified people who are also willing to implement his America First Agenda.”
Jones was replaced by Kyle Diamantas, a Florida attorney who appears to have little in the way experience in food regulation but is a hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr.
Dr. Peter Marks
Food and Drug Administration
The head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research announced March 28 that he was retiring in protest over HHS Secretary Kennedy’s anti-vaccine beliefs and initiatives. Marks, who as the agency’s top vaccine official oversaw the effort to rapidly review and approve vaccines for COVID-19, wrote in his resignation letter that “it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”
Marks went on to say: “Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at [the] FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety, and security.”
An agency spokesperson reacted sourly, asserting that “if Peter Marks does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at [the] FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy.”
Nathaniel Brought
National Institutes of Health
The director of the NIH’s executive secretariat on February 18 sent a passionate resignation letter that included a fiery denunciation of Trump, who he said “doesn’t give a damn about federal employees” and just wants to “install racists at the State Department and DOGE, to continue his lifelong fight against justice for African Americans.”
Brought, a Marine Corps veteran and former National Security Agency official, also said: “I did not make sure terrorists met their makers so that I could watch one lead and then attack my country.”
The White House, apparently, has not commented on Brought’s resignation specifically. But Brought’s post about his resignation on LinkedIn drew dozens of warm responses.
Michelle King
Social Security Administration
King, a veteran employee of the SSA who became the agency’s acting commissioner, resigned February 16 to protest being asked to turn over sensitive personal information on millions of Americans to Elon Musk’s minions with DOGE. Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, praised King for “refusing to succumb to Elon Musk and his cronies’ demands to access highly sensitive and confidential beneficiary data.”
In response, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields released a statement suggesting that King, with thirty years of service to the SSA, was unqualified: “President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.”
Steven Reilly
General Services Administration
A lead engineer at GSA’s Technology Transformation Services arm, Reilly resigned on February 18 after its new director, a former Tesla employee and Musk associate named Thomas Shedd, demanded unlimited access to systems containing “variable data for members of the public,” including phone numbers and the ability to grant this access to others, Thomas wrote in a farewell message to colleagues. “We have not received a justification for this request,” he continued, adding that efforts to suggest alternatives, including read-only access, were rejected.
“I don’t believe that I can operate a program and system without the ability to manage access” to this information, Reilly explained. “As a result, I have submitted my resignation to GSA. Today will be my last day.”
The White House has not commented specifically on Reilly’s resignation, but he is likely included in Leavitt’s putdown about the out-of-control “bureaucrats” who once ran the government.
David Lebryk
U.S. Treasury Department
Treasury’s highest-ranking career official, Lebryk abruptly ended a career spanning decades on January 31 after clashing with Musk’s DOGE shock troops seeking access to government payment systems. He did not comment publicly on his decision, but told staff in an email, “Our work may be unknown to most of the public, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exceptionally important.”
Musk responded to Lebryk’s departure in a post on his social media platform X, where he claimed without evidence: “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.”
Melanie Krause
Internal Revenue Service
In a story that’s still developing as of this writing, acting IRS commissioner Krause is reportedly planning to resign after she and others at the agency were excluded from discussions that led to an agreement to allow Homeland Security personnel to access the tax data of undocumented immigrants, presumably so ICE agents can more effectively hunt them down. Krause found out about the arrangement after Treasury representatives shared the details with Fox News.
“She no longer feels like she’s in a position where she can impact the decision-making that’s happening,” one person familiar with the situation told the Washington Post. “And [she believes] that some of the decisions that are being made now are things the IRS can never recover from.”
Krause is the third person to head the IRS since Trump took office. Her immediate predecessor, Doug O’Donnell, retired after DOGE and immigration enforcement officials sought access to confidential personal taxpayer data. Trump, on taking office, fired IRS head Danny Werfel, an appointee of Joe Biden, and nominated Billy Long, a six-term Republican member of Congress with little in the way of relevant experience, to head the agency. Long’s appointment has not yet been confirmed. But it’s a safe bet he won’t be objecting to the use of his office for political ends.
James Dennehy
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The top agent at the FBI’s largest field office in New York was forced to quit on February 28 by Trump administration officials apparently angered by his support of the agency’s interim leaders, who balked at a request to provide a list of all personnel involved in investigating the January 6th attack on U.S. Capitol. Dennehy urged his staff to “dig in” against such efforts, saying bureau employees were “in the middle of a battle,” with some “being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy.”
After getting the boot, Dennehy praised the agency’s legacy of independence, writing in an email to colleagues, “We will not bend. We will not falter. We will not sacrifice what is right for anything or anyone.”
In response, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Dennehy of refusing to turn over files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier, Trump buddy, and convicted sex trafficker who killed himself in prison. Dennehy’s forced resignation, ironically, came on the same day that Kash Patel, the new director of the FBI, released a two-minute video in which he pledges his support for bureau employees, saying “I will fight for you every single day.” Just not on this one.
Elizabeth “Liz” Oyer
Department of Justice
The department’s former pardon attorney was fired March 7 after refusing a request to add actor Mel Gibson to a list of individuals whose rights to gun ownership were being restored despite prior convictions for domestic violence. Oyer refused to do so because Gibson, a prominent Trump backer, had not gone through the extensive background investigation to measure the likelihood of his committing another crime, as had others on the list. “This is dangerous. This isn’t political—this is a safety issue,” she told the New York Times.
In an interview published April 3 by Democracy Docket, Oyer said she thinks “the department is bullying people into either stepping back or acquiescing to political priorities. And it’s important, in my view, to stand up to a bully, not to allow your career expertise to be used to provide sort of a veneer of legitimacy to decisions that are really political in nature.”
The Justice Department has denied there is any connection between Oyer’s dismissal and Gibson’s inclusion on the list. (He was later indeed added to it.) Deputy AG Todd Blanche, in a statement on Oyer’s case, said “former employees who violate their ethical duties by making false accusations on press tours will not be tolerated.” Of course not.
On Monday, Oyer testified at a “shadow hearing” organized by congressional Democrats. The Justice Department tried to block her appearance by claiming it was barred under “executive privilege.” Armed U.S. marshals were sent to deliver a letter making this assertion to her home, but they were called off when she acknowledged having received it via email. Oyer testified anyway, telling hearing attendees, “I will not be bullied into concealing the ongoing corruption and abuse of power at the Department of Justice.”
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