President Donald Trump’s former acting chief of staff and current special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney, said on Thursday that he had resigned from his post after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol.
“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I would resign from it. I just can not do it. I can not stay, “Mulvaney said in an interview with CNBC, referring to the Trump-inspired riots.
“The president of the United States stood on the stage and said, ‘Go march down the street and invade the Capitol, and they did,'” Mulvaney said.
Mulvaney, a key figure in the Trump indictment who challenged a congressional subpoena to testify about what he knows, told CNBC that when he was acting chief of staff, he ‘never asked us to do anything unethical or should definitely not do it illegally. ‘
“It is clear that he is not the same as he was eight months ago, and the people who are advising him are certainly not the same as eight months ago, and that leads to a dangerous combination as you saw yesterday,” said Mulvaney.
He acknowledged that his resignation was a no-brainer. “It does not affect the outcome, it does not affect the transition, but that’s what I have, and that’s a position I really enjoy doing, but you can’t do it,” he said.
Mulvaney said he had spoken to other friends in the government and expected others to leave the next day or two.
“Those who prefer to stay, and I have talked to some of them, choose to stay because they are worried that the president may appoint someone to replace them who could make things worse,” Mulvaney said.
Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger also resigned, his boss, Robert O’Brien, announced on Twitter.
“Asking Matt Pottinger to serve as my deputy was my first action as NSA, and it turned out to be one of my best decisions. While going to the West to rejoin his family in beautiful Utah, Matt does “with my appreciation for a well-deserved job, and with my lasting friendship,” O’Brien wrote. a few tweets.
O’Brien added that Pottinger’s work has led to a great awakening in our country and around the world to the danger posed by the Chinese Communist Party. ‘
On Wednesday, Melania Trump chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary, left her post, as did Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews. Social secretary Rickie Niceta has also retired, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Jerome Marcus, a lawyer who worked on behalf of the Trump campaign in a lawsuit, on Thursday asked Jerome Marcus to withdraw as a lawyer in the case.
In a letter to the judge, Marcus writes: ‘the client [Trump] used the services of the lawyer to commit a crime and the client insists on taking action which the lawyer considers repulsive and with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement. ”
The letter did not elaborate on the allegations. The underlying case focused on a Trump campaign complaint that did not allow viewers to see the count of votes in Philadelphia. At an emergency hearing in November, Marcus admitted to the judge that there were a “non-zero number” of security guards in the room. “I’m sorry, what’s your problem then?” replied the judge.
The judge eventually denied the campaign’s attempt to stop the vote count and worked out a compromise between the election officials and the campaign over how many observers were allowed.
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Mulvaney became Trump’s acting chief of staff in late 2018 after the president announced that John Kelly had resigned. Trump replaced Mulvaney in March and appointed then-US Representative Mark Meadows, RN.C., in his place. Mulvaney also previously served as a U.S. representative for South Carolina and as director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.
“I can not stay here, not after yesterday,” he said in the interview on Thursday. “You can not look at it yesterday and think I want to be a part of it.”
Tom Winter contributed.