Profiles in courage Robert Reich Feb 13 Friends, Sometimes it takes a crisis to reveal one’s true character. This is especially true of people who occupy positions of leadership, both in the private and public sectors. Are they courageous, or are they cowards? Worse yet, are they complicit in doing grave harm? During the current crisis of American democracy, we know who’s in the complicit category: House Speaker Mike Johnson and almost all other Republican lawmakers. Several CEOs: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Rupert Murdoch. And many Fox News personalities. History (to the extent future historians have access to the truth) will judge them harshly as traitors to America. As to the cowards, I’d include Jamie Dimon, chair and CEO of JPMorganChase, the largest bank in the United States, who likes to think of himself as a spokesperson for American business. Dimon and others like him are playing along with Trump and Musk. What about the courageous? A few Democratic lawmakers are finally showing some spine. But today I’d like to honor unsung heroes whose courage in the face of the Trump-Musk takeover of America deserves our profound thanks. They are public servants who have chosen to fight rather than submit to Trump’s treachery, contesting his blatantly illegal attempts to fire them. They include: 1. Phyllis Fong, the former inspector general of the Department of Agriculture. When she got notice that the Trump regime was terminating her employment, Fong informed her colleagues that she intended to remain in her position because Trump had not followed proper legal procedures in terminating her. When security guards told Fong — a 22-year veteran of the department — she had to leave, she did not go quietly. She had to be dragged out of her office. The inspector general of the Department of Agriculture has a broad mandate to protect the public — pursuing consumer food safety, consumer health (such as tracking the bird flu that’s been spreading among cattle and chickens and killed at least one person so far), and auditing and investigating government payments to a large number of contractors. In 2022, Fong’s office launched an investigation of Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, Neuralink. With Fong out of the picture, that investigation now appears on its way to being closed. For her long-standing dedication to the people of the United States and her steadfastness in seeking to remain in her important job, Fong deserves to be known as a profile in courage. 2. Brian Driscoll, acting FBI director. Driscoll has refused a Justice Department order that he assist in firing FBI employees involved in investigating the people responsible for violence in the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. When Driscoll notified his staff about the Justice Department’s order, he wrote, “I am one of those employees.” Driscoll took part in the arrest of Samuel Fisher, an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, in Manhattan two weeks after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. FBI agents found in Fisher’s Upper East Side apartment and car over a thousand rounds of ammunition and several weapons, including an illegally modified AR-15 rifle and machetes. In 2022, Fisher was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a gun possession charge in Manhattan Supreme Court. He also pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally entering the Capitol on January 6. Trump pardoned Fisher on January 20. In a defiant email sent last Friday night, James Dennehy, the top FBI agent in the New York field office, warned his staff that the FBI was “in the middle of a battle of our own.” Praising Driscoll and Driscoll’s deputy, Robert C. Kissane, as “warriors,” Dennehy said they were “fighting for this organization.” FBI agents have anonymously sued to block dissemination of the names of agents who worked on the January 6 cases. For his refusal to furnish the names of FBI agents who helped investigate the January 6 assailants, Driscoll deserves to be seen as a profile in courage. 3. Ellen L. Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission. Trump tried to fire Weintraub last Thursday, but she is fighting the dismissal. Weintraub wrote in an X post, to which she attached Trump’s dismissal letter: “Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of FEC. I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way. That’s not changing anytime soon. There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners — this isn’t it.” According to federal law, FEC commissioners are appointed to six-year terms. Because the FEC is an independent agency with a highly sensitive mission, its commissioners can be removed only for cause. Trump’s communication did not invoke any cause for the removal. Commissioners can remain at the FEC past their term’s expiration date until a replacement is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Trump’s attempt to fire Weintraub comes just as the FEC was considering complaints involving the 2024 Trump campaign and Elon Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC. In comments to The New York Times, Weintraub said she wasn’t surprised to be targeted by Trump. She had publicly complained that the FEC’s structure of six commissioners, no more than three of whom can be from the same political party, ensures 3-3 gridlock on enforcement matters, including ones involving the president’s campaigns. For her courageous stand, Weintraub deserves to be seen as a profile in courage. 4. Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel. Dellinger runs the office that enforces federal whistleblower laws and the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in most political activity. In the 1978 law that established Dellinger’s job, Congress provided that the special counsel can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Trump fired Dellinger on Friday. On Monday, Dellinger sued, calling his removal illegal, arguing that nothing about his performance could possibly meet the standard Congress laid out for dismissing a special counsel. “Since my arrival at OSC last year, I could not be more proud of all we have accomplished,” Dellinger said. “The agency’s work has earned praise from advocates for whistleblowers, veterans, and others. The effort to remove me has no factual nor legal basis — none — which means it is illegal.” Dellinger continues to police the government against Hatch Act violations, even when they involve federal workers who allegedly discriminated against Trump. In a complaint filed Tuesday, Dellinger alleged that, during a hurricane response in October, an aid supervisor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency illegally instructed FEMA workers not to visit homes with Trump signs. On Monday night, Judge Amy Berman Jackson blocked Dellinger’s dismissal at least through today, as she hears arguments in the case. For choosing to fight, Dellinger is a profile in courage. 5. Gwynne Wilcox, chair of the National Labor Relations Board. After being dismissed by Trump last week, Wilcox sued, arguing that the statute governing her position allows removal “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” By firing her, Trump also made the NLRB inoperative, because it no longer has the number of commissioners needed to make rulings. Not incidentally, when Trump fired Wilcox, 24 separate cases were pending against Musk before the NLRB. For choosing to sue Trump, Wilcox is a profile in courage. 6. Federal workers who are peacefully resisting. I also want to salute other federal workers who are resisting Trump’s arbitrary and illegal orders terminating their employment. The staff of the General Services Administration have flooded online communications channels like Slack with spoon emojis in response to Musk’s “Fork in the Road” buyout offer. Scores of other federal workers have marked the buyout memo and other emails from Trump and Musk as “spam.” Thousands of federal workers in agencies that collect or analyze sensitive data have launched encrypted chats to discuss how they can best shield the data from Trump and Musk. Also meriting our profound thanks are federal workers who are showing up to and leading the protests at USAID, the Department of Labor, and other agencies targeted by the Trump-Vance-Musk regime. The “fednews” subreddit, an online forum popular with government workers, has seen multiple highly upvoted posts urging fellow workers to “hold the line” and “support the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic” by NOT resigning. The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, now has the highest number of dues-paying members in its 92-year history. Four thousand federal workers joined the union in the first five days of February. *** The public servants who are defying and contesting the Trump-Vance-Musk coup are putting themselves, their jobs, their careers, and in some cases the well-being of their families on the line. They are doing so because they believe in the importance of their jobs in protecting and helping the American public, and they justifiably believe Trump and Musk are violating the law. In sharp contrast to those who are complicit in the Trump-Vance-Musk coup and those who are too cowardly to speak up against it, these men and women are today’s true patriots.