Since 2019, Hilary Perkins had proudly served as a career lawyer for the government. She took seriously a basic tenet of the job, which is to argue the position of the administration, no matter the political stripes of the boss you serve. A Christian conservative hired under President Trump, she went on to defend the availability of the abortion pill under President Biden.
But last week, three days after becoming chief counsel of the Food and Drug Administration, Ms. Perkins abruptly resigned, forced out by a pressure campaign instigated by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri. “It turns out this Biden lawyer has argued FOR Biden’s outrageous pro-abortion rules in *many* cases,” he wrote on social media.
He omitted that Ms. Perkins worked on the opposite side of a case his wife, Erin Hawley, took to the Supreme Court over access to the pill, mifepristone. He also did not mention that, in at least one other instance, Ms. Perkins had worked to keep limits on the drug’s availability.
The episode underscored the continuing purge of civil servant attorneys across the government, claiming, in this instance, a conservative casualty. Her ouster, current and former Justice Department lawyers said, is a troubling indication of how the ejections of government attorneys, at a time when the administration is engaged in dozens of high-stakes legal battles, is weakening the department.
“Senator Hawley’s accusations against me are false,” Ms. Perkins told The New York Times. “I am not who he says I am. I am a Christian who is both conservative and pro-life and who simply followed my oath as a Department of Justice career attorney. He should be fighting for me, not against me.”
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the senator referred to his previous social media posts. A representative for Ms. Hawley did not immediately comment.
Over two days, Mr. Hawley attacked Ms. Perkins not just as an abortion advocate but also as a lawyer who argued in favor of vaccine mandates. When it became clear that her hiring could threaten the nomination of Dr. Marty Makary as F.D.A. commissioner, Ms. Perkins reluctantly decided to resign.
Lost in the social media scrum about Ms. Perkins was a fundamental principle undergirding the work of Justice Department lawyers. They are obligated to argue legal positions at the direction of their bosses, not based on their personal views, and only in rare instances do such attorneys beg off a case.
A memo issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi emphasized that point, but she went further in suggesting that any lawyer who did not follow orders could be fired. The argument leveled against Ms. Perkins, then, is in effect at odds with Ms. Bondi’s guidance.
At the Justice Department, scores of senior and career lawyers have been demoted, fired or forced to resign as the Trump administration seeks to exert tighter control over the department. Ms. Bondi and others have argued the moves are meant to end what she and the president call the “weaponization” of the legal system. Critics say the administration is undermining the department by stripping away decades of experience and expertise.
Ms. Perkins left her job at the Justice Department to join the F.D.A. Tim Goeglein, the vice president of government affairs at the anti-abortion group Focus on the Family, said time was running out to get “a pro-life F.D.A. chief counsel.” He added, “I have only known Hilary Perkins to be categorically and reliably pro-life.”
Mr. Trump’s former solicitor general, Noel Francisco, praised Ms. Perkins as “a great lawyer” who “vigorously advanced our client’s interests, not her own.” The pair worked together to defend the former governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell, a Republican, in a corruption case that was later tossed out by the Supreme Court.
Mr. McDonnell seconded that assessment, saying, “She’s worked for Republican and Democrat administrations, which is a very positive thing.”
The “rush and crush of the legislative process in Washington” made it hard to get the full story on recent events, he added, saying that Ms. Perkins was a “genuine conservative” who would have done extraordinary work at the F.D.A.
Ms. Perkins worked on a number of cases involving mifepristone.
Like all civil service lawyers in the department, she argued for the government’s position. Sometimes that meant seeking to maintain limits on the drug, such as requiring in-person visits to get a prescription, and other times she argued or oversaw legal arguments against imposing additional limits on it.
One case she supervised reached the Supreme Court last year. In that case, the conservative court ruled unanimously in the Biden administration’s favor against advocates who wanted to significantly limit the availability of mifepristone.
Ms. Hawley was the lead lawyer in that case representing a group of abortion opponents who claimed that the pill, approved more than two decades ago, is a danger to women.
The senator has made no suggestion that his wife’s role as opposing counsel in a case had anything to do with his public campaign against Ms. Perkins, who had already been scrutinized and vetted by the Trump administration before she was offered the F.D.A. job.
But as Mr. Hawley issued a steady drumbeat of criticism against her last week, Trump administration officials began to fear his anger might scuttle Dr. Makary’s nomination.
Just before a Senate committee voted on Thursday on Dr. Makary, administration officials were told that the senator planned to vote against him if Ms. Perkins did not leave the agency, according to people familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
At the hearing, the senator said he had decided to vote for Dr. Makary because Ms. Perkins had resigned.
In the end, two Democrats on the panel voted for Dr. Makary, meaning Mr. Hawley’s vote might not have been the deciding one. But by then, it was too late.
“I was honored that President Trump appointed me to be F.D.A.’s chief counsel, and I was firmly committed to advancing the administration’s priorities,” Ms. Perkins told The Times.
