Everyone Who’s Resigned From the Trump Administration in Protest

A number of prominent government officials have decided to resign from the Trump Administration after thousands of federal workers were fired as part of a push to streamline government operations.

The career officials, many of whom served in previous presidential administrations, have condemned President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for seemingly pressuring workers not considered loyal to the new administration to vacate their jobs. In February, the Trump Administration—working closely with the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Musk—ordered agencies to terminate most probationary and temporary employees.

Here’s a list of the government officials who have resigned from the Trump Administration in protest.

Director of the FDA’s food division

Jim Jones, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s food division, stepped down on Feb. 17, citing “indiscriminate” cuts across the agency that he said would make it “fruitless for him to continue.”

“I was looking forward to working to pursue the department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” Jones wrote in his resignation letter, according to Bloomberg. He added that the Trump Administration’s “disdain for the very people” needed to implement food safety reforms gave him no choice but to depart.

Jones joined the agency in September 2023 and most recently oversaw the Biden Administration’s ban on the food dye Red No. 3 in January, as well as the FDA’s investigation of contaminated applesauce linked to dozens of lead poisoning cases in children. In his letter, he estimated that 89 staff members out of the 2,000 people in his division were fired as part of the Trump Administration’s cuts.

Jones also criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly-appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS), for “impugning the integrity of the food staff, asserting they are corrupt based on falsities.”

Acting SSA commissioner

Michelle King, the top official at the Social Security Administration, stepped down from her role as acting commissioner after DOGE sought access to sensitive records containing the private information of Americans, according to the Associated Press. King refused to hand over sensitive information to the DOGE staffers, and was replaced as acting commissioner by Leland Dudek.

King had spent 30 years working in the agency, which oversees retiree and disability benefits received by 73 million people. Trump told reporters at a press conference on Feb. 18 that King did not resign, but was rather fired: “You know when you fire someone, they always resign and then they say, 'We resigned.' But when you have numbers like that, I think really it's [you] got fired."

GSA engineering lead

Steven Reilly, a lead engineer at the Technology Transformation Services arm of the General Services Administration, resigned on Feb. 18 after Thomas Shedd, a DOGE ally now in charge of the branch, requested access to sensitive data, including personally identifiable information (PII), according to The Washington Post.

“We have not received a justification for this request, which makes it difficult to suggest alternative approaches that would accomplish Thomas’ goals while still being protective of [personally identifiable information] for members of the public,” Reilly wrote in a parting message to colleagues, according to The Washington Post. “We have made clear to Thomas that this level of permission would allow access to PII. While we have suggested alternatives, such as read-only access, Thomas has continued to request full admin/root access.”

Reilly led the engineering team for notify.gov, a government system used to send mass text messages to the public. 

Career Justice Department officials

Justice Department officials normally remain in office from one administration to the next. But dozens of career officials, including top prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and New York, have quit since Trump took office, in protest of his calls to shake up the department he believes was used against him.

Seven federal prosecutors have so far resigned after acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered them to drop criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is set to go on trial in April on charges of bribery and campaign finance violations. Adams, a Democrat who pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing, has forged ties with Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, particularly over immigration.

The officials who resigned included Danielle Sassoon, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York; Hagan Scotten, assistant U.S. attorney with the Southern District of New York; John Keller, acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section; and Kevin Driscoll, acting head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

Elsewhere in the Justice Department, Bradley Weinsheimer, a senior ethics official who was named associate deputy attorney general during Trump’s first term, accepted the government’s deferred resignation offer after the administration tried to reassign him to a new sanctuary cities working group, according to Reuters. Weinsheimer had been with the department for 34 years.

Denise Cheung, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., resigned Feb. 18 after she received an order from Trump’s Justice Department to open a grand jury investigation into Biden-era climate funds, which she viewed as premature and unsupported by evidence. 

“When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence,” Cheung wrote in her resignation letter, according to Politico. “I still do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to issue the letter you described.” Cheung, who had worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office since 2000, refused the order to open the investigation and use the DOJ's powers to freeze that climate funding, claiming that step would only be permitted if prosecutors had “probable cause” to believe a crime had been committed.