Fight or flight: This time, some top federal officials resigned rather than try to fend off a Trump firing

Early this month, Michael Barr, a vice chair of the Federal Reserve, did the same thing with 1 1/2 years left in his four-year term. And last Friday, Danny Werfel, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, stepped down even though his term doesn’t end until 2027.

Republicans have sharply criticized all three officials. With Wray and Werfel, Trump moved to force their hands by publicly revealing his picks to replace them before they had announced they were leaving.

Still, some Democrats were frustrated by the resignations.

“Our job is to stay and do our work until we get pushed out the door,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told the Globe. “The first time around, Donald Trump surrounded himself with a lot of people with whom I had serious disagreements, but people who mostly believed in their jobs and did their jobs. Now the number one, number two, number three, number four, number five test is loyalty to Donald Trump.”

Trump has complained about all three agencies and has specifically targeted the FBI for an overhaul after his allegations that it was “weaponized” to pursue him for political reasons during the 2016 campaign and again under President Joe Biden. Wray, Werfel, and Barr each said they decided to step down voluntarily to avoid the turmoil that could come from a battle to keep their jobs.

“My conclusion was that the thing that was best for the bureau was to try to do this in an orderly way, to not thrust the FBI deeper into the fray,” Wray told CBS’s “60 Minutes,” noting that Trump had “made clear” he intended to make a change when he announced on Nov. 30 his plan to nominate Kash Patel for the job.

On Dec. 11, Wray announced he would resign at the end of Biden’s term. Trump handpicked Wray for the job in 2017, calling him “a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity.”

Republicans have praised the move to replace Wray with Patel, a Trump loyalist.

“As far as I’m concerned with Chris Wray, good riddance,” Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt, the state’s former attorney general, told Fox Business. “He did a lot, along with [outgoing Attorney General] Merrick Garland, to destroy the reputation of a once-respected agency.”

But Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Wray set a bad precedent.

“Christopher Wray has been a very dedicated public servant, and certainly the nation would have been well served if he had continued,” Blumenthal, a former US attorney who served as Connecticut’s attorney general, told the Globe. “I think he should have stayed and forced President Trump to fire him if, in fact, he was going to let him go.”

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Congress purposely made positions like FBI director and IRS commissioner different than other high-level executive branch posts, which are expected to change with each administration, said Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition, which provides nonpartisan guidance for incoming presidential administrations.

“It is concerning to see these positions turn over,” she said. “These terms last across administrations so that these agencies can act with integrity and without political influence.”

In his first term, Trump did not try to replace the IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, despite strong criticism from Republicans who charged he unfairly targeted them and called for his ouster. He left in November 2017 after serving out his term. Trump replaced him with Charles Rettig, who continued into Biden’s term before resigning in 2022 and being replaced by Werfel.

Congressional Democrats wanted Werfel to stay to defend the agency from attacks by Trump. The IRS received $80 billion over 10 years in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to help reverse years of staff reductions and improve collections, but Trump has falsely said the money was solely to hire an army of agents to harass taxpayers.

“He revolutionized the technological commitment to a tax collection agency that clearly was outmatched by sophisticated tax avoidance advocates,” Representative Richard Neal of Springfield said of Werfel. But Neal understands why Werfel opted to resign after Trump announced on Dec. 4 that he planned to nominate former Missouri Representative Billy Long for the job.

“When you read about your successor being named, it doesn’t offer much latitude for sticking around,” Neal said.

One top official who has chosen to stay despite being a frequent Trump target is Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Trump picked him for the job in 2017, then took the rare step of publicly vilifying him for the central bank’s interest rate decisions and reportedly considered firing him. Biden reappointed Powell and his second four-year term does not end until May 2026.

The Fed is an independent agency and no chair has ever been fired, although the legality of such a move has never been litigated. Powell answered bluntly, “no,” when asked at a news conference two days after the November election if he would resign if Trump asked him to.

As to whether Trump had the power to fire him, Powell responded, “not permitted under law.” A month later, Trump said he would not try to replace Powell before his term expires.

But Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, opted for a different path.

The job has been controversial since it was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to oversee the Fed’s bank regulation, with Republicans and financial industry executives complaining about overly burdensome oversight. Biden picked Barr for the job and he was confirmed by the Senate in 2022 for a four-year term.

Republicans have been critical of Barr’s tough regulatory stance. And with the potential for Trump to try to replace him, Barr announced on Jan. 6 that he would step down as vice chair.

“The risk of a dispute over the position could be a distraction from our mission,” Barr said in a statement explaining his decision. He will remain on the Fed’s Board of Governors for a term that lasts until 2032.

The move avoided a potential legal fight that could have determined whether the president has the ability to fire the vice chair as well as the Fed chair. But it allows Trump to nominate another Fed board member for the vice chair of supervision position who probably won’t be as tough on banks as Barr.

Warren believes financial institutions need to be more tightly regulated to avoid incidents like 2023’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and she was not happy with Barr’s decision to open the door for a key Trump appointment.

“Staying and fighting that fight is a crucial part of public service,” she said, “and I’m disappointed that Barr has backed off from that.”

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Jim Puzzanghera can be reached at jim.puzzanghera@globe.com. Follow him @JimPuzzanghera.