As a senior attorney in the Commerce Department, Eric Chung helped implement the 2022 law known as the CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan effort championed by President Joe Biden to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research.
But Chung left his civil service job in April, shortly after President Donald Trump called the law a “horrible, horrible thing” in a joint address to Congress and urged lawmakers to scrap the CHIPS program. (On Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Senate appropriators that Trump is renegotiating some of Biden’s semiconductor grants.)
“With elections, there are consequences and you expect some changes,’’ Chung said. “But the idea of just going after a program that’s so bipartisan … for no apparent reason, just railing against it, certainly disappointed me, and I just couldn’t watch it unfold.”
