President Biden on Friday fired Sharon Gustafson, who was appointed by former President Trump as the general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The White House told Gustafson that she was being fired effective 5 p.m. Friday after she refused to resign willingly.
In a letter to the White House released by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank, Gustafson said she "respectfully" declined the White House's request to resign and that she wanted to serve the remainder of her four-year term, which was set to expire in 2023.
Republicans swiftly came out swinging against the firing. Andrea Lucas, a Republican-appointed commissioner to the EEOC, described the firing as a violation of Biden's calls for unity.
"I find the action taken today by the White House against our independent agency to be deeply troubling, a break from long-established norms respected by presidents of both parties, an injection of partisanship where it had been absent, and telling evidence of what 'unity' actually means to this President and his Administration", she tweeted.
