Resigning in protest is a rare act of courage

If only we could all be like Danielle Sassoon, who told the thugs to stick their crime where the sun don’t shine.

Hard as it’s been for us sane Americans to navigate the MAGA idiocracy, the journey has been even more torturous this past month for public servants who still believe in venerable America values like the rule of law.

This dilemma is not new. Typically, cogs in the government wheel suspend their consciences and bend to the prevailing winds, fearful of job loss and mindful that they have mouths to feed at home. It has long been that way. Chalk it up to human nature.

But along comes Sassoon and six other Justice Department lawyers, quitting en masse instead of doing Trump’s dirty work. Even better, Sassoon (until her departure, the top U.S. attorney for Manhattan) and Hagan Scotten (until his departure, an assistant U.S. attorney for Manhattan) tongue-lashed their oppressors in eloquent resignation letters.

Sassoon, speaking out about the decision of the Justice Department to drop its case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, wrote: “I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office…(The dismissal order is) inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear of favor…It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent…I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations.”

Recall the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan said it had “concrete evidence” that Adams is a crook. He was indicted last year on five counts of bribery, fraud, and solicitation of illegal foreign campaign donations. But the Trump regime demanded that Sassoon kill the case for political reasons – if Adams was let off the hook, he’d show his gratitude by cooperating with Trump’s immigration crackdown.

It’s not as if Sassoon and Scotten are wide-eyed lefties. Sassoon, a rising star in conservative legal circles, clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, and Scotten clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts after winning two Bronze Stars in the Special Forces. And they’ve drawn support from 900 former New York prosecutors who’ve signed an open letter saluting their courage: “You have responded to ethical challenges, of a type no public servant should ever be forced to confront, with principle and conviction.”

Unfortunately, I question whether such laudable acts of patriotism will put this nation on the road to recovery. Sassoon, Scotten, and the others will be simply replaced by complicit lackeys, but there’s always the hope their vocal dissents will inspire many more people, inside and outside government, to speak out until their sum total becomes a collective roar.

Now let me tell you a story about Walter Shaub.

Back in 2017, he led the federal Office of Government Ethics. He quit only six months after Trump’s Inaugural, which is understandable, because running an ethics office during a MAGA administration was surely a preposterous proposition, like wielding a mop in a toxic waste dump. I interviewed Shaub after his exit; he said: “I felt that staying on the job would make me complicit. If I stayed, I feared that I would be window dressing for corruption.”

The problem, of course, was that his act of conscience had all the impact of a pebble dropped a pond. The few who publicly resigned were simply replaced by complicit cogs. It’s the same dilemma now. If every government official with even a scintilla of self-respect were to quit in protest, the Putin-Musk-Trump regime would just fill those slots with hacks who’d keep the train hurtling down the tracks. As Bret Stephens, the conservative anti-Trump columnist, lamented the other day in an online chat, referring to Danielle Sassoon, “I’m sure her family is kvelling (proud). The problem for the rest of us is that if we have another three years and 11 months of this, there won’t be a rule of law left in the United States.”

He got that right.

But it’s clear by now that the seeds of rebellion can’t be planted on the inside. An anti-totalitarian grassroots movement can only be harvested from the outside. As exhausted as I am by the electorate’s detestable (but narrow) endorsement of vengeance and ignorance, and as tempting as it may be to take refuge in Netflix binges for the foreseeable future, my fervent hope is that the small acts of conscience from the likes of Sassoon and her colleagues will inspire many others, that these nascent trickles of protest will build to a mighty flood.

It’s the only way.

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Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at [email protected]