Former Department of Justice official Hui Chen said she resigned from her position because President Trump does not abide by the standard of ethics that she was working to uphold.
She was working in the Fraud Section of Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Chen laid out her reasons for leaving in a LinkedIn article posted last week.
“I could have left on November 9 or January 21, but I didn’t,” Chen explained in an interview with CNN. “I liked the importance of the work and loved the people I worked with (at the Justice Department). The decision wasn’t easy.”
Chen wrote in her LinkedIn post that trying to hold companies to the standards that the current administration is not living up to created a “cognitive dissonance” that she could not reconcile.
“To sit across the table from companies and question how committed they were to ethics and compliance felt not only hypocritical, but very much like shuffling the deck chair on the Titanic,” Chen wrote.
“Even as I engaged in those questioning and evaluations, on my mind were the numerous lawsuits pending against the President of the United States for everything from violations of the Constitution to conflict of interest, the ongoing investigations of potentially treasonous conducts, and the investigators and prosecutors fired for their pursuits of principles and facts,” she continued. “Those are conducts I would not tolerate seeing in a company, yet I worked under an administration that engaged in exactly those conduct. I wanted no more part in it.”
Chen also said she wants to speak out publicly and work to elect political candidates that will restore the “notions of integrity, decency, and intellect back into our government.” She was barred from political activism under the Hatch Act.
“I will also consider it my personal mission to participate in efforts to hold our elected representatives accountable and to protect our environment. I believe it has never been more important for every individual to speak and act on their conscience and belief.”