Former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff and current special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney, said on Thursday that he resigned after pro-Trump protesters invaded the Capitol.
“I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to warn you that I would be waiving this. I just can’t do this. I can’t stay, ”said Mulvaney in an interview with CNBC, citing the Trump-inspired riot.
“The President of the United States took the stage and said to march down the street and invade the Capitol, and they did,” said Mulvaney.
Mulvaney, a key figure in Trump’s impeachment proceedings who challenged a subpoena from Congress to testify about what he knew, told CNBC that when he was acting chief of staff “the president never asked us to do anything unethical or certainly illegal”.
“Clearly, he is not the same as eight months ago, and certainly the people who advise him are not the same as eight months ago, and that leads to a kind of dangerous combination as you saw yesterday,” said Mulvaney.
He acknowledged that his resignation is “nothing.” “It doesn’t affect the outcome, it doesn’t affect the transition, but it’s what I have, and it’s a position that I really enjoy doing, but you can’t do it,” he said.
Mulvaney said he talked to other friends in the government and expects others to leave in the next two days.
“Those who chose to stay, and I talked to some of them, are choosing to stay because they are concerned that the president might put someone in to replace them, which could make things worse,” said Mulvaney.
Deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger has also resigned, announced his boss, Robert O’Brien, on Twitter.
“Asking Matt Pottinger to serve as my replacement was my first act as an NSA and it ended up being one of my best decisions. As he heads west to reunite with his family in beautiful Utah, Matt does so with my recognition for a job well done and with my lasting friendship, “wrote O’Brien in a couple of 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’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary, stepped down, as did deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews. Social Secretary Rickie Niceta also stepped down, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
On Thursday, Jerome Marcus, a lawyer who worked on behalf of the Trump campaign in a lawsuit involving Pennsylvania’s election, asked to retire as a lawyer in the case.
In a letter to the judge, Marcus wrote: “the client [Trump] used the lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime, and the client insists on taking measures that the lawyer’s find disgusting and with which the lawyer’s fundamental disagreement. “
The letter did not detail the allegations. The underlying case centered on a Trump campaign complaint that poll watchers were not allowed to see the vote count in Philadelphia. At an emergency hearing in November, Marcus acknowledged to the judge that there were “non-zero” observers in the room. “I’m sorry, so what’s your problem?” the judge answered.
The judge ended up denying the campaign offer to interrupt the counting of votes and reached an agreement between election officials and the campaign on how many observers could enter.
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Mulvaney became Trump’s acting chief of staff in late 2018, after the president announced that John Kelly was resigning. Trump replaced Mulvaney in March, naming then-deputy Mark Meadows, RN.C., in his place. Mulvaney also previously served as a U.S. representative in South Carolina and director of Trump’s Office of Administration and Budget.
“I can’t stay here, not the day after yesterday,” he said in the interview on Thursday. “You can’t look at it yesterday and think that I want to be a part of it.”
Tom Winter contributed.