Transportation secretary Elaine Chao, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney also quit
Joanna Walter at The Guardian:
The education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has become the second person in Trump’s cabinet to resign in the wake of the attack on the Capitol on Wednesday by pro-Trump rioters who had been encouraged by the president.
Her resignation on Thursday night came after the transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, stood down earlier in the day.
In a letter to Trump, DeVos said the attack on the Capitol was unconscionable and blamed Trump’s “rhetoric” for “the mess caused by violent protestors overrunning the US Capitol in an attempt to undermine the people’s business”.
“There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” she wrote, adding that her resignation would be effective on Friday.
DeVos was one of Trump’s longest, and most controversial, cabinet members. She was a staunch ally of charter schools, rescinded anti-discrimination protections for trans children, and threatened to take funding from schools that allowed trans athletes to participate on teams that matched their gender. In a farewell letter to Congress earlier this week, she urged lawmakers to reject policies supported by Joe Biden.
The American Federation of Teachers issued a pithy two word statement on her departure: “Good riddance.”
Chao, the transportation secretary, is married to the Senate majority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, who delayed acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in November’s election.
There were a string of other resignations on Wednesday and Thursday. Trump’s deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, former chief of staff and current special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney, and Ryan Tully, the top White House adviser on Russia, also stepped down.
Two other senior White House officials – the national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, and the deputy chief of staff, Chris Liddell – are reportedly considering stepping down after a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building.
Pottinger and Mulvaney’s departures come amid intense speculation about other high-level departures after the US president incited and praised rioters while continuing to air baseless grievances over his loss of the presidency.
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Two of the first lady’s top aides resigned on Wednesday night, including Stephanie Grisham, a longtime Trump loyalist who previously served as White House press secretary. Anna Cristina Niceta, the White House social secretary, also resigned.
The deputy White House press secretary, Sarah Matthews, also announced her resignation, saying she was “deeply disturbed” by the storming of the Capitol.
