One year after the Jan. 6 riot, the voices of those who broke with Trump over that day have mostly been muted, moved on, or, in certain instances, come to embrace Trump all over again. POLITICO contacted eighteen Trump administration officials who stepped down as a result of Jan. 6 or whose resignation seemed timed to it. Only one agreed to speak on the record about their decision that day.

“I think it’s about survival,” said Stephanie Grisham, who resigned on Jan. 6 as chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump and recently published a book that criticized the president’s and first lady’s handling of the riots. “If you stand up then you’re going to be out there alone.”…

“You’ve got two camps right now of people who should speak out and haven’t. The first camp knows Trump is a dangerous and vindictive man but doesn’t want to upend their lives by provoking his ire. The second camp is more nakedly transactional,” said Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration who was revealed to be the author of “Anonymous,” an anti-Trump tell-all. “They see that the GOP is still drunk on the MAGA Kool Aid, and they don’t want to get left behind.”…

But even the substantive criticisms have been muted. Instead, some Jan. 6 defectors have come to dispute the idea that they ever resigned in protest at all, while others seem content to simply concede that their former boss remains the de facto ringleader of their party. Most, mainly, have resorted to silence.