Since 2019, Hilary Perkins had proudly served as a career lawyer for the government. She took seriously a basic tenet of the job, which is to argue the position of the administration, no matter the political stripes of the boss you serve. A Christian conservative hired under President Trump, she went on to defend the availability of the abortion pill under President Biden.

But last week, three days after becoming chief counsel of the Food and Drug Administration, Ms. Perkins abruptly resigned, forced out by a pressure campaign instigated by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri. “It turns out this Biden lawyer has argued FOR Biden’s outrageous pro-abortion rules in many cases,” he wrote on social media.

He omitted that Ms. Perkins worked on the opposite side of a case his wife, Erin Hawley, took to the Supreme Court over access to the pill, mifepristone. He also did not mention that, in at least one other instance, Ms. Perkins had worked to keep limits on the drug’s availability.

The episode underscored the continuing purge of civil servant attorneys across the government, claiming, in this instance, a conservative casualty. Her ouster, current and former Justice Department lawyers said, is a troubling indication of how the ejections of government attorneys, at a time when the administration is engaged in dozens of high-stakes legal battles, is weakening the department.

“Senator Hawley’s accusations against me are false,” Ms. Perkins told The New York Times. “I am not who he says I am. I am a Christian who is both conservative and pro-life and who simply followed my oath as a Department of Justice career attorney. He should be fighting for me, not against me.”. //

A memo issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi emphasized that point, but she went further in suggesting that any lawyer who did not follow orders could be fired. The argument leveled against Ms. Perkins, then, is in effect at odds with Ms. Bondi’s guidance. //

Ms. Perkins left her job at the Justice Department to join the F.D.A. Tim Goeglein, the vice president of government affairs at the anti-abortion group Focus on the Family, said time was running out to get “a pro-life F.D.A. chief counsel.” He added, “I have only known Hilary Perkins to be categorically and reliably pro-life.”. //

“I was honored that President Trump appointed me to be F.D.A.’s chief counsel, and I was firmly committed to advancing the administration’s priorities,” Ms. Perkins told The Times.