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A list of Trump administration officials who are quitting in the wake of the violent protests on Capitol Hill is growing, and includes Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and the first lady’s chief of staff as well as a top official who dealt with China.
DeVos submitted her resignation Thursday night, blaming Trump for inflaming tensions. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” she said in her resignation letter.
Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said in a tweet earlier in the day that she will resign effective Monday. She said that the events “deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”
Thursday morning, Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, said he quit as the U.S.’s special envoy to Northern Ireland.
“I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney, also a former director of the White House’s budget office, told CNBC.
The resignation of Mulvaney followed one by Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff and press secretary for first lady Melania Trump, and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, a China expert. White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews also resigned, the Associated Press reported.
“We didn’t sign up for what you saw last night,” Mulvaney said. “We signed up for making America great again, we signed up for lower taxes and less regulation,” he added.
Trump supporters breached the Capitol building on Wednesday, temporarily halting the counting of Electoral College votes. Congress later certified Joe Biden’s victory in the November election.
The attack on the Capitol came after Trump on Wednesday afternoon again insisted without evidence that he lost because of widespread election fraud.
“We will never concede,” he told a rally of his supporters near the White House. “It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
After Biden’s victory was certified, Trump pledged an orderly transition.
But as of late Thursday morning, at least one other official had resigned, and there was discussion of more to come.
Chao was the first cabinet secretary to quit.
The New York Times reported others are considering resigning in response to the siege at the Capitol. But national security adviser Robert O’Brien, who had been said to be considering leaving, plans to stay, the Times reported, in part out of concern about leaving no one in the government at it ends.
The resignations, coming as Trump has about two weeks remaining in office, drew criticism from some as being too late.
“The officials immediately responsible for the administration’s harm should not be applauded for handing in their two weeks’ notice just days before President Trump’s term is up — nor should they be able to seek refuge in corporate boardrooms and universities after Inauguration Day,” said Kyle Herrig, president of government watchdog group Accountable.US.
U.S. stocks DJIA, +0.69%, meanwhile, surged Thursday after a better-than-expected report on the service sector and after the certification of Biden’s win and Trump’s promise of an orderly transition of government.
