Members of Trump cabinet wanted him to resign after Capitol riots
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Pompeo is recorded saying that the probability was low since there was a lot of work to be done and considered the idea unproductive.
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Jan. 6 panel (The New York Times)
Testimony released on Friday night shows that members of former resident Donald Trump’s cabinet discussed the possibility of asking him to resign or invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office - days after the Capitol riots.
Trump’s Secretary of State at the time, Mike Pompeo, told investigators that Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia approached him about the possibility: “His request of me was, would I be willing to support or participate in a cabinet meeting with the president?” according to the transcript, adding, "Scalia wanted Trump to meet with the cabinet about the events of Jan. 6... implicitly, at least, if not directly, to ask him to think about resigning.”
Pompeo was recorded saying that the probability in his opinion was low since there was a lot of work to be done and considered the idea unproductive.
This comes after the final report by the January 6 Select Committee on the investigation concluded: former President Donald Trump is accused of engaging in a "multi-part conspiracy".
According to the report, the MAGA campaigner "purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud... and for purposes of soliciting contributions," which led to the riots at the Capitol. The report stated that these indicate support for "a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election."
'Fanciful' forced resignation
The 25th Amendment can be invoked when the vice president and a majority of the cabinet see the president unfit to “discharge the powers and duties of his office,” but if the president rejects, a vote of two-thirds of both the House and the Senate would have him removed and a VP would replace him instead.
Read more: Trump may be first US president to undergo criminal referral for Jan.6
“I’m sure the words ‘25th Amendment’ came up in some conversations. I have no specific recollection of that. But it was never anything that I had a conversation with anyone that I can recall that was remotely serious,” Pompeo said, as he asserted he was never on board with the idea which he called “fanciful".
Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao resigned after the Capitol riots but denied having discussions with other members about the 25th Amendment.
Then-Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, told the investigative panel that when approached about the invocation, he declined to transfer a call from Democratic leaders and expressed that he felt Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were attempting to pass a trick to the press.
According to Short's recorded transcript, Pence’s staff didn’t think Trump was mentally incapable of being president and that there was no time to invoke him either.
Short confirmed that some Cabinet members resigned, but the shocker is that Short claimed no recall of any recommendations by members to invoke the 25th Amendment. “There was plenty in the press, but not in our office” about invoking it, he said.
