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Michael Ben’Ary, the chief of the national security section of the US Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, became a household name in the anti-Trump resistance on Friday after he penned a scathing farewell letter in which he accuses a weaponized Department of Justice (DOJ) of undermining national security by focusing on the president’s grievances instead of doing more important work. 

“I am disappointed to leave behind a national security and public safety mission that I truly believed in. I am even more disappointed to see what has happened to this office and the Department of Justice in just a few short months,” he wrote. “The decisions to remove experienced career officials from US Attorneys Offices, the FBI, and other critical parts of DOJ undermines our country’s ability to counter terrorist organizations, malign nation-state actors, and countless others that seek to harm our nation and its citizens.”

Ben’Ary says he was fired because of “little more than a single social media post containing false information,” a reference to a tweet from MAGA influencer Julie Kelly, who had speculated that the 20-year DOJ veteran was “a big part of the internal resistance” to the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.

No evidence, just an assumption that maybe he wasn’t on board with a decision that seems to be entirely based on politics and the president’s vendetta against a perceived enemy.

That is enough to get people fired in the Trump administration these days. 

At the same time, top White House officials are plotting how they can take advantage of the current shutdown to accelerate their continued destruction of the parts of the federal government that are not ideologically aligned with the president’s agenda. 

In other words, if you don’t agree with turning the United States into a right-wing autocracy, you are in real danger of losing your job. 

Which begs the question: What are you going to do about that?

Ben’Ary, for example, seems to have some useful information. 

In his letter, he writes that the DOJ’s leadership “is more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security.” 

“I took an oath to our Constitution, as did each of you, and it remains your responsibility to uphold that oath in the work that you do. It is this oath that requires you to follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, free from fear or favor, and unhindered by political interference,” Ben’Ary wrote. “In recent months, the political leadership of the Department have violated these principles, jeopardizing our national security and making American citizens less safe.” 

Those are serious charges, and we have little doubt that he can back them up. 

So here is our question: Why didn’t he do that already? 

Why didn’t he blow the whistle? Why didn’t he contact the DOJ’s inspector general? Why didn’t he reach out to congressional Democrats on the respective judiciary committees? Why didn’t he tell his story to a reporter before he lost his job? 

To be fair, we can’t be sure that he didn’t do those things, but it seems as though very few federal employees who object to what Trump is doing to the country are taking action, so chances are that he didn’t. 

We also realize that they may be worried about losing their jobs, but those are in real jeopardy in any case, so why not fight back?

Trump isn’t all-powerful yet, so now is the time to bring to light any damaging information that federal workers are aware of. This is especially important because, hopefully, there will be a reckoning down the road, and senior administration officials will be held to account for their lawless behavior. 

Someone like Ben’Ary could really help in that regard. 

In just a few months, many potential scandals involving the DOJ have been revealed. The shady deal with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the termination of dozens of FBI agents involved in the investigations of Trump and the people who stormed Congress on his behalf, everything related to the Epstein files (including what led to Ghislaine Maxwell being moved to a low-security facility), the decision to drop a probe of Tom Homan for accepting a bag of cash last year, and many more. 

Yes, these are things primarily involving Trump’s political appointees, but others must know something. 

And that’s just one department. 

This administration does a lot of really bad stuff, and there is no way that there isn’t incriminating evidence out there that career employees have access to. 

ICE raids, the politicization of the Pentagon, efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to stifle free speech, whatever it is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing at the Department of Health and Human Services, the neutering of the EPA, how government contracts are awarded these days, examples of favoritism, etc. 

A lot of this stuff cannot be completely hidden. Keep in mind, we are not dealing with geniuses here who are running the government. 

There must be thousands of federal employees who have information worth sharing, and we believe that they have an obligation to do so. Their allegiance should be to the Constitution and to the United States of America, not to a president who wants to turn the country into an autocracy.

We understand that there is a potential cost, but if you are willing to blow the whistle on Trump, then your job is probably in jeopardy anyways. 

And it’s getting late in the game. The White House is moving with incredible speed, so time is running out. 

In his farewell letter, Ben’Ary asked his former colleagues “to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.” He added, “Stand up for what we all believe in — our Constitution and the rule of law. Our country depends on you.” 

We agree. 

That’s why we urge federal employees who have knowledge of potentially illegal, unconstitutional, and shady behavior of this administration to reach out to us, to other journalists, to prosecutors, to their inspectors general, and to Congress. 

Not just because it is important and because it is the right thing to do, but also because we believe that, ultimately, they will regret doing nothing a lot more than doing something.