A top U.S. State Department official has resigned over President Donald Trump’s handling of racial tensions across the country, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, has served in the Trump administration since its first day. However, according to The Post, she submitted her resignation on Thursday, saying that the president’s actions against protesters “cut sharply against my core values and convictions.”
As noted by The Post, Taylor’s resignation letter “serves as an indictment of Trump’s stewardship at a time of national unrest from one of the administration’s highest-ranking African Americans and an aide who was viewed as both loyal and effective in serving his presidency.”
“Moments of upheaval can change you, shift the trajectory of your life, and mold your character. The President’s comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions,” Taylor wrote in her resignation letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “I must follow the dictates of my conscience and resign as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs.”
Taylor, 30, was unanimously confirmed to her position in October 2018 and is the youngest assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in history and the first black woman to serve in that post.
