I worked for Trump. He wants you to be afraid.

What having a front-row seat to January 6 taught me.

When I was 25, I got my dream job. I became Deputy Press Secretary, working in the White House, helping the American people understand the president’s agenda each day. The only problem was, that president was Donald Trump.

I always had my reservations about working for someone as unstable as Trump. I came up admiring and working in the offices of the now-extinct normie Republicans who used to populate the party—people like former Sen. Rob Portman and former House Speaker John Boehner.

But despite my reservations, I took the job, believing that even a character as flawed as Trump needed good people around him who were fundamentally honest and interested in improving the country. After all—I told myself—if decent people don’t take these jobs, won’t they just go to liars and conmen?

I started in June 2020. Six months later, Donald Trump instigated the gravest attack on the US government in living memory. From months of lies about the election being “stolen,” to his speech at the Ellipse where he urged his followers to “show strength,” to his instructions to march to the Capitol, he was—to use Mitch McConnell’s phrase—“practically and morally responsible” for what happened on January 6.

We all know the events that unfolded on that day. Thousands of violent rioters, many of whom were armed, stormed the seat of government to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Windows were smashed, Congressional offices defiled, and police officers viciously assaulted. Ultimately five of them died and 17 were seriously injured.

As I watched the images unfold on the day, the only path forward was clear to me: Resign. I did so immediately. I expected many of my colleagues to do the same, and some of them did—people who cared more about telling the truth than preserving their influence inside Trump’s Republican Party.

But most of them didn’t.