Several Trump admin officials resign following Capitol siege
Among the effective-immediately departures: Mick Mulvaney, Matthew Pottinger and Stephanie Grisham.
Several White House officials have resigned from their positions in President Donald Trump‘s administration after yesterday’s siege at the Capitol, which Trump himself inspired.
Just this morning, Mick Mulvaney, who was at one time the president’s chief of staff, resigned from his role as special U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland.
“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mick Mulvaney said in an exclusive interview on Squawk Box on CNBC.
“Those who choose to stay, and I have talked with some of them, are choosing to stay because they’re worried the president might put someone worse in,” Mulvaney told the show’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.
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“We didn’t sign up for what you saw last night,” he continued. “We signed up for making America great again, we signed up for lower taxes and less regulation. The president has a long list of successes that we can be proud of.”
Trump, he added, is “not the same as he was eight months ago.”
Mulvaney was Trump’s chief of staff from Nov. 2017 through Dec. 2018. Under Trump, the former South Carolina congressman has also served as director of the Office of Management and Budget and director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien is reportedly considering resignation. His deputy, Matthew Pottinger, has already resigned.
In the East Wing, Stephanie Grisham, former White House press secretary and the chief of staff for First Lady Melania Trump, was the first to resign Wednesday afternoon.
“It has been an honor to serve the country in the @WhiteHouse,” Grisham wrote on Twitter. “I am very proud to have been a part of @FLOTUS @MELANIATRUMP mission to help children everywhere, & proud of the many accomplishments of this Administration.” She then shared her personal Twitter handle.
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White House Social Secretary Anna Cristina Niceta also resigned Wednesday, effective immediately.
So did Sarah Matthews, the White House’s deputy press secretary.
Mulvaney opined that the deadly insurrection yesterday would be the lasting legacy of the Trump administration.
“The folks who spent time away from our families, put our careers on the line to go work for Donald Trump — and we did have those successes to look back at — but now, it will always be, ‘Oh yeah, you work (for) the guy who tried to overtake the government,” he said.
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