John Stanton, CPA, is a seasoned accountant who left his Big$-4$ CPA firm Senior Manager position to become the CFO of a highly successful hundred million$-$dollar publicly$-$held manufacturer of solar panels. The company wanted John$$s expertise in the renewable energy sector and his pedigree from working for one of the Big$-4$ firms. The company plans to expand its operations later in the year and is in the process of seeking a loan from a financial institution to fund the expansion. Everything went well for the first two months until the controller, Diane Hopkins, who is also a CPA, came to John with a problem. She discovered that one of her accounts payable clerks has been embezzling money from the company by processing and approving fictitious invoices from shell companies for fictitious purchases that the AP clerk had created. Diane estimated that the clerk had been able to steal approximately $$250,000$ over the year and a half they worked at the company. Diane and John agreed to fire the clerk immediately and did so$.$ They also agreed that John would report the matter to the CEO, David Laskey.

John picked up the phone and called Laskey, who was also the chair of the board of directors, to give him a heads up on what had transpired. Laskey asked John to come to his office the next day to discuss the matter. At that meeting, Laskey instructed John to go no further and tell Diane to drop the matter because of the pending bank loan. John is considering his options.

Evaluate John's options from an ethical reasoning perspective.