The White House dismissed the Trump-appointed General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) on Friday night after his refusal to resign.
In a definitive letter Friday morning to President Biden, Sharon Gustafson said he “respectfully” declined the White House’s resignation request, noting that it served only half of its four-year term.
“I intend to honor this commitment,” she wrote in a letter released by the Center for Ethics and Public Policy. “I have given this advice with confidence to countless clients in trouble over the past 25 years: keep your head up, do your best work and don’t resign under pressure. I am sympathetic to them, I will follow that advice,” she added. .
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Gustafson was informed less than three hours later by deputy director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Gautam Raghavan, in an email that his job would be “terminated” as of 5 pm on Friday.
Gustafson, the first woman to serve as the EEOC’s General Counsel, noted that his removal was highly irregular and that a General Counselor had never been dismissed for “being nominated by the wrong political party”.
In her letter to Biden, she accused the administration of suppressing its work on religious discrimination by removing press releases, reports and podcasts from the EEOC website after its inauguration.
“I can only assume that my resignation would be followed by a similar suppression of our work to promote religious freedom,” wrote Gustafson.
Republicans condemned the movement as a political attack and pointed to Biden’s campaign promise to end the party struggle in Washington.
“This is a pattern. President Biden calls for an end to the ‘party war’, just to turn around and demand that Senate-confirmed officials resign so that he can make room for his leftist friends,” said Republican MP Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said in a statement.
“President Biden must take note of the general council Gustafson, who kept his commitment and refused to give in to party pressure. This unprecedented dismissal of an honorable public official, which occurred just hours after she was asked to resign, is unjustified and should be terminated immediately, “said Foxx.
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Gustafson faced scrutiny for comments he made about the LBGTQ community after his nomination in 2018. It was confirmed by the Senate in August 2019.
EEOC did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment.