When Representative Liz Cheney said during a House of Representatives hearing on Thursday (January 6th) that members of the Trump administration’s cabinet are considering referring to the constitutional process to remove President Donald J. Trump from office after the attack on the Capitol by his supporters, she did not immediately provide details or evidence.
But as the federal government writhed in the hours and days after the deadly riot, a number of cabinet officials considered their options and consulted with each other on how to stabilize the administration and ensure a peaceful transition to a new presidency.
Mike Pompeo, then Secretary of State, and Stephen Mnuchin, then Secretary of the Treasury, discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would require the Vice President and a majority in the Cabinet to agree that the President could no longer perform his duties. to start a complex process of removal from office.
Their discussion was reported by Jonathan Carl of ABC News in his book Betrayal and described to The New York Times by a person informed of the discussion. Mr Pompeo denied the exchange had taken place, and Mr Mnuchin declined to comment.
Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education, told USA Today this week that she had raised with Vice President Mike Pence whether the cabinet should consider a 25th amendment. But Mr Pence, she said, “has made it very clear that he will not go in that direction.”
She decided to resign. Matt Pottinger, deputy national security adviser, did the same.
Eugene Scalia, then Labor Minister, discussed with colleagues immediately after the attack the need to stabilize the administration, according to three people familiar with the talks.
They said Mr Scalia had called Mr Pence’s aide to say he was embarrassed that Mr Trump had the level of power he had and that there should be more involvement than side of the cabinet. Mr. Pence’s team was reluctant to make such a move.
Mr Scalia also had a conversation with Mr Pompeo, which Mr Pompeo shared with many people, in which Mr Scalia suggested that someone should tell the President to resign voluntarily or do something else to restore confidence in the government and a peaceful transition of power.
Mr Pompeo replied sarcastically, asking how Mr Scalia imagined that this conversation with Mr Trump would take place.
Mr Scalia and Mr Pompeo, through an assistant, declined to comment.
Ms. Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming and vice president of the House of Representatives committee on Jan. 6, cited the 25th Amendment, which is being considered by cabinet members, was one of the most striking allegations in the committee’s two-hour hearing. . At the first of six scheduled public hearings, the commission presented a detailed case against Mr Trump and the rebels who stormed the Capitol and delayed congressional verification of the results of the Electoral College.
Read more about the hearings of the House of Representatives committee on January 6
The panel signaled that it plans to use discussions on the 25th Amendment to show not only the chaos Mr Trump has caused by fueling the uprising, but also how little confidence people around him have in his ability to be president. .
“You will hear about members of Trump’s cabinet discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment and replacing the president of the United States,” Ms. Cheney said as she read her opening statement at the hearing. “Many members of President Trump’s own cabinet resigned immediately after Jan. 6.”
In addition to Ms. DeVos, the Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao – the wife of Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader – also resigned.
At a hearing on Thursday, Ms. Cheney also said that Republicans who were involved in helping Mr. Trump cancel the election called for a pardon from the White House in the administration’s last days. The Commission plans to use pardon applications as evidence of how those who helped Mr Trump were aware of their guilt for what they did.
Ms Cheney did not provide any evidence to support her claim and named only one MP, Representative Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, as a pardon petitioner.
In an email, Jay Ostrich, a spokesman for Mr Perry, called the allegation a “ridiculous and soulless lie”.
Ms Cheney promised to reveal supporting evidence at the upcoming hearings, and a person familiar with the commission’s investigation said the commission had received testimony about the pardon requests.
Mr Perry is coordinating a plan to try to replace the acting Attorney General, who opposed Mr Trump’s attempts to investigate baseless election fraud reports, with a more agreeable official. Mr Perry also backed the idea of encouraging Mr Trump’s supporters to march on the Capitol on 6 January.
The committee’s next hearing is scheduled for Monday, where the committee plans to set out how Mr Trump and his allies have instigated the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen. Two more hearings are scheduled for next week – one on Wednesday for the Justice Department’s attempt to oust the acting Attorney General, and another on Thursday for a campaign to pressure Mr Pence to block or delay the counting of the election.
Three former Justice Ministry officials agreed to testify at Wednesday’s hearing, according to a letter sent to the commission on Friday.
The three witnesses – Jeffrey A. Rosen, acting Acting Attorney General, Richard P. Donohue, Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Stephen A. Engel, a former head of the Office of Legal Advisers – all took part in a tense meeting just before the attack. January 6, when Mr. Trump was considering firing Mr. Rosen and appointing a loyalist in his place.
Even before January 6, government officials under Mr. Trump discussed the reference to the 25th Amendment.
In the spring of 2017, after Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the director of the FBI, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, moved by Mr Trump’s attitude to the dismissal, raised the possibility of referring to the 25th Amendment in a meeting with senior Justice and FBI officials.
Acting FBI Director Andrew J. McCabe launched a counterintelligence investigation into Mr Trump’s ties to Russia and pressured Mr Rosenstein to appoint a special lawyer. Mr Rosenstein agreed that Mr Trump’s possible ties to Russia should be investigated, but said that if the investigation revealed disturbing evidence of Mr Trump’s ties to Russia, the only remedy would be to refer to 25 the amendment.
Mr Rosenstein said at the time that he had made the calculations and believed there were at least six cabinet officials who would agree, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. Despite the opportunity, the idea went nowhere, and Mr. Rosenstein appointed Robert C. Mueller III as special adviser.
In the following years, there were several revelations about others that discussed the possibility of referring to the amendment. In 2019, a book by an anonymous administration official said that senior White House officials believed that Mr. Pence would agree to refer to the amendment to remove Mr. Trump. Mr Pence denied the allegations.
A veteran CBS News producer named Ira Rosen wrote in his 2021 book about his time in the news business that Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist until August 2017, spoke to him about 25 the amendment.
And Mark T. Esper, Mr. Trump’s last Senate-appointed Secretary of Defense, wrote in his recent book, The Holy Oath, about the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s diatribe against the military during a meeting with Joint Chiefs of Staff. headquarters during the second half of his term.
“Months later, one of the officers present told me in a phone call that he had returned that evening, deeply concerned about what he had seen in his commander-in-chief,” Mr Esper said, without identifying the person in question.
“The next morning, he said in a very sober tone, he began reading the 25th Amendment and the role of the cabinet as an inspection of the president,” Mr Esper said. “He wanted to know” what the cabinet should consider “and what the process is.
Mr Esper said he believed Mr Trump’s behavior had never reached the standard needed to refer to the 25th Amendment. But that was before the post-election period, when Mr Esper was fired by Mr Trump.
Two days after the Capitol riot, President Nancy Pelosi spoke with General Mark A. Millie, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“That’s bad, but who knows what he can do?” According to the book Danger by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Ms. Pelosi said. “He is crazy. You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time. So don’t say you don’t know what his state of mind is.
“Madam Speaker,” replied General Millie, “I agree with you on everything.”
Luke Broadwater and Katie Banner contributed to the report.
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