Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, quit after the Justice Department told her to withdraw corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.
So I’m curious: what would happen if she said “no”, and also refused to resign or quit?
Honestly, I’m a bit flummoxed as to why people aren’t forcing the fascists hands here. Don’t make it easy for them. Don’t smooth the process. Make them do absurd things in reaction to our refusal to carry out their absurd directives. Everything should be intentionally messy in this context.
Fully agree, I’m getting really tired of people in positions like this just bowing out and not forcing the other side to follow through on their threats.
As much as we need people to stay and fight, I can’t blame them for getting out. This is an administration that has no problem enabling people to send death threats and worse. I can’t imagine the kind of stress she’s going through.
I get it, this is one major reason why I’m not interested in getting into politics myself, but I think if you’re willing to take on this role in government then you should be willing to stand up for it. Pretty easy of me to say sitting behind this screen though.
She’s not really a politician though. I agree for the politicians, and I agree ideally everyone should, but most people are just trying to get by and only looking out for themselves.
I’m really on the fence with this one, she’s not a politician but it is still a pretty public position in the government. I do, however, think that we need to some how figure out how to dissuade people from making death threats, they have become far too normalized at this point, but I suppose with 300 million people in this country you’re going to have a large number of the population (even if it’s a small percentage) that take things to the extreme and I don’t know how you fix that. Like, how do you teach empathy to people who clearly don’t have any?
My employer (a biotech, with some government contracts, and a bunch of research grant money that ultimately finds its way to us) has done the anticipatory compliance thing on DEI - not 100% sure on whether or not they’re just quieting it down, or if they’re really killing the whole program, but they seem to be more concerned about legal/administrative CYA than doing the right thing.
Quitting is their ideal outcome. If they fire someone then the question becomes “Why?” and in some cases they open themselves up to a lawsuit because the former employee now has standing. They don’t want to go on record in court or put themselves in a position to lie under oath. The Law is their biggest enemy and with every single act of malfeasance their quiet assertion is, “nobody is stopping us so it must be okay.”
That I understand and is also why I want these people to actually make Trump take an action that is legally challengeable in court. Although Trump is already defying court orders so I don’t know how much will come of it, but I figure if we keep seeing the pile of tangible illegal actions that courts are going on record to state they are illegal then maybe we’ll get enough sway back away from the far right.
Because many of these people signed on to be civil servants, not political pawns.
And the alt-right has shown that they are willing to kill to get their way. These people didn’t sign up for that either.
There are brave souls who are standing up to fascism by digging their heels in. But there are people who never wanted the lime light, who only wanted to do their job. Their bravery is different because they are resigning, forcing the spotlight on them but in a different way.
She probably did the best right thing she could live with.
He told her the prosecutors who had worked on the case against Mr. Adams were being placed on administrative leave because they, too, were unwilling to obey his order.
“He” being Justice Department deputy attorney general Emil Bove III, who wrote an 8-page letter to accept her resignation.
So I’m curious: what would happen if she said “no”, and also refused to resign or quit?
Honestly, I’m a bit flummoxed as to why people aren’t forcing the fascists hands here. Don’t make it easy for them. Don’t smooth the process. Make them do absurd things in reaction to our refusal to carry out their absurd directives. Everything should be intentionally messy in this context.
Fully agree, I’m getting really tired of people in positions like this just bowing out and not forcing the other side to follow through on their threats.
As much as we need people to stay and fight, I can’t blame them for getting out. This is an administration that has no problem enabling people to send death threats and worse. I can’t imagine the kind of stress she’s going through.
We don’t know if she has a family being threatened, health issues, etc. either. It’s way easier to judge when you have nothing at stake.
I get it, this is one major reason why I’m not interested in getting into politics myself, but I think if you’re willing to take on this role in government then you should be willing to stand up for it. Pretty easy of me to say sitting behind this screen though.
She’s not really a politician though. I agree for the politicians, and I agree ideally everyone should, but most people are just trying to get by and only looking out for themselves.
I’m really on the fence with this one, she’s not a politician but it is still a pretty public position in the government. I do, however, think that we need to some how figure out how to dissuade people from making death threats, they have become far too normalized at this point, but I suppose with 300 million people in this country you’re going to have a large number of the population (even if it’s a small percentage) that take things to the extreme and I don’t know how you fix that. Like, how do you teach empathy to people who clearly don’t have any?
My employer (a biotech, with some government contracts, and a bunch of research grant money that ultimately finds its way to us) has done the anticipatory compliance thing on DEI - not 100% sure on whether or not they’re just quieting it down, or if they’re really killing the whole program, but they seem to be more concerned about legal/administrative CYA than doing the right thing.
Quitting is their ideal outcome. If they fire someone then the question becomes “Why?” and in some cases they open themselves up to a lawsuit because the former employee now has standing. They don’t want to go on record in court or put themselves in a position to lie under oath. The Law is their biggest enemy and with every single act of malfeasance their quiet assertion is, “nobody is stopping us so it must be okay.”
That I understand and is also why I want these people to actually make Trump take an action that is legally challengeable in court. Although Trump is already defying court orders so I don’t know how much will come of it, but I figure if we keep seeing the pile of tangible illegal actions that courts are going on record to state they are illegal then maybe we’ll get enough sway back away from the far right.
Because many of these people signed on to be civil servants, not political pawns.
And the alt-right has shown that they are willing to kill to get their way. These people didn’t sign up for that either.
There are brave souls who are standing up to fascism by digging their heels in. But there are people who never wanted the lime light, who only wanted to do their job. Their bravery is different because they are resigning, forcing the spotlight on them but in a different way.
She probably did the best right thing she could live with.
I’ve seen others try this in other positions. They stop getting paid and are locked out from work, and sue
Which is more of a protest than just quitting, and more of a drain to the powers that be demanding this stuff go away.
“He” being Justice Department deputy attorney general Emil Bove III, who wrote an 8-page letter to accept her resignation.