Hilary Perkins spent all of two days working in the second Trump administration before becoming used as a confirmation pawn to secure the path forward for President Donald Trump’s nominee for Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Dr. Marty Makary.
Perkins described the chief counsel position at FDA as her dream job in an interview with the Washington Examiner. But she said she was forced to resign after her work on abortion-related cases as a career attorney for the Department of Justice caught the attention of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who threatened to withhold his vote for Makary if Perkins did not resign.
Perkins spent nearly six years working for the DOJ’s Consumer Protection Branch, as both a trial attorney and assistant director, before accepting her FDA post. Before that, she was an experienced attorney at the mega-firm Jones Day.
A week after Makary’s relatively uneventful confirmation hearing before the Senate health committee, Hawley drew attention to Perkins’s appointment in the new administration, the first political position in her career.
The Missouri Republican, in a series of posts on X, accused Perkins of being a “Biden abortion lawyer” who also “argued FOR Biden’s draconian, discredited vaccine mandates.” Hawley threatened to vote down Makary’s confirmation unless Perkins was removed from her post, and the FDA caved just one day later.
‘A terrible mistake’
Technically, Hawley was right.
In her role at DOJ, Perkins argued on behalf of the Biden administration on multiple abortion cases, including the mifepristone challenge that went to the Supreme Court in June of last year and a vaccine mandate case back in early 2021. The Biden administration would go on to win both of those cases.
But Perkins says Hawley left out key parts of her story, mainly because he declined her overtures to speak with him.
Perkins is a self-described “pro-life Christian” and voted for Trump in both of the last two general elections. In a recent op-ed, Perkins shared the deeply personal story that a miscarriage shaped her perspective on the sanctity of life.
Hawley also declined to mention in his social media posts that his wife, Erin Hawley, argued the anti-abortion side of the Supreme Court mifepristone challenge.
Perkins called Hawley’s move a “terrible mistake.”
“In an ideal world, he would have come to me and said, ‘Hey, I have some concerns about your work on these cases, and we would have had a conversation,” Perkins told the Washington Examiner. “He wouldn’t even speak with me. He just basically condemned me and said, ‘No, you can’t do this. You’re not conservative, and said all those things weren’t true.’”
Hawley’s office did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner.
Hawley said at Makary’s committee vote that the only reason he was going to back the fDA nominee is because of Perkins’s resignation.
‘President Trump’s playbook’
Hawley is new to the Senate health committee responsible for the confirmation hearings of most health picks for the Trump administration, including Makary.
Shortly after Hawley’s posts about Perkins, the Missouri Republican made a similar social media move against Trump’s nominee to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, celebrity surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Hawley called out Oz for his past support of transgender medical procedures for minors on his long-running television talk show, although Oz denounced so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors during his 2022 Senate campaign.
When asked by reporters about his challenge against Oz, Hawley said that he just wanted to ensure the doctor was “in line with the President.”
In the context of the Oz controversy, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Washington Examiner that all members of the administration are “working from the same playbook, President Trump’s playbook.”
The White House did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment regarding Hawley’s concerns about Perkins at the time of publication.
What’s next for Perkins?
Following Makary’s Tuesday confirmation in the Senate, Perkins is hoping to go public with her story, both to clear her name as a “conservative” and, potentially, rejoin the administration, either as FDA general counsel or in a different capacity.
She said that she has had those “discussions” with the White House, but White House Office of Presidential Personnel Director Sergio Gor declined to comment when asked by the Washington Examiner about Perkins’s future prospects.
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As for the case work Hawley took issue with, Perkins argues that her behavior aligned perfectly with guidance for DOJ attorneys laid out by Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi sent a memo to all DOJ personnel on February 5 clarifying “general policy regarding zealous advocacy on behalf of the United States.”
“It is the job of an attorney privileged to serve in the Department of Justice to zealously defend the interests of the United States,” Bondi’s memo reads, noting that DOJ attorneys who break from official administration policy would be subject to discipline and potentially termination.
“The responsibilities of Department of Justice attorneys include not only aggressively enforcing criminal and civil laws enacted by Congress, but also vigorously defending presidential policies and actions against legal challenges on behalf of the United States,’ the memo continued. “The discretion afforded Department attorneys entrusted with those responsibilities does not include latitude to substitute personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election.”
Perkins stressed to the Washington Examiner that, as FDA general counsel, she would not be dictating policy but advising Makary on the “legality of the positions that the administration wants to take.”
“I wouldn’t be setting those policies. Those would be set by higher leadership, like Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Makary, and my primary role would still be as an attorney, providing advice on legal risks,” she explained.
Ultimately, Perkins recognizes she lacks any real “recourse” to regain her FDA post but still “100%” supports the administration and believes she is the “right person for the job.”
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Perkins said that it “should have been totally fine for me to do my job as a career DOJ attorney across multiple administrations and then come into this administration because I support it.”
“So if anyone’s hypocritical — I would say to Senator Hawley, ‘yeah, we should be on the same team. And you’re misconstruing the work that I did as a Department of Justice career attorney as saying something about my personal views or who I am, and that’s just incorrect.”