When Rep. Liz Cheney testified at the House hearing on Thursday, January 6, members of the Trump administration cabinet weighed in on the invocation of the constitutional process to remove President Donald J. Trump from office after the ‘attack on the Capitol by his supporters did not immediately provide details or details. tests.
But as the federal government rallied in the hours and days following the deadly riot, several cabinet officials weighed in on their options and consulted among themselves on how to stabilize the administration and ensure a peaceful transition to a new presidency.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would have required the vice president and most of the cabinet to agree that the president could no longer month. fulfill their duties to initiate a complex process of dismissal.
His discussion was reported by Jonathan Karl of ABC News in his book “Betrayal” and described in The New York Times by a person informed about the discussion. Mr. Pompey has denied that the exchange took place, and Mr. Mnuchin declined to comment.
Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education of Mr. Trump told USA Today this week that he and Vice President Mike Pence were considering whether the Cabinet should consider the 25th Amendment. But Mr Pence, he said, “made it very clear that he was not going in that direction.”
She decided to resign. So did Matt Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser.
Eugene Scalia, then Secretary of Labor, discussed with his colleagues right after the attack the need to consolidate the administration, according to three people familiar with the talks.
Mr. Scalia called an assistant of Mr. Pence, they said, to tell him he was uncomfortable that Mr. Trump was running out of control over him at the time, and there needed to be more cabinet involvement. Mr.’s team Pence did not want to make such a move.
Mr. Scalia also had a conversation with Mr. Pompey, that Mr. Pompey shared with several people, in which Mr. Scalia suggested that someone talk to Mr. Trump on the need to do something to restore confidence in the government and a peaceful transition. of power. In the interpretation of Mr. Pompey of this conversation, discussed by others, Mr. Scalia also suggested that someone talk to Mr. Trump on resignation.
Mr. Pompeo responded sarcastically by asking how Mr. Scalia imagined that conversation with Mr. Trump would go.
Mr. Scalia and Mr. Pompey, through an assistant, refused to comment.
The reference to Mrs. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and vice-chair of the House committee on Jan. 6, in the 25th amendment being considered by cabinet members was one of the most startling statements in the two-hour hearing. of the panel. At the first of the six scheduled public hearings, the committee presented a detailed case against Mr. Trump and the mutineers who stormed the Capitol and delayed Congressional certification of Electoral College results.
Read more about the January 6 House Committee hearings
The panel noted that it plans to use the discussions on the 25th Amendment to show not only the chaos that Mr. Trump provoked by helping to fuel the unrest, but the lack of confidence in those around him in his ability to be president.
“You will hear from members of Trump’s cabinet who are 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. “Several members of President Trump’s own cabinet resigned immediately after Jan. 6.”
In addition to Ms. DeVos, she also resigned as Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, the wife of Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell.
At Thursday’s hearing, Ms. Cheney also said Republican lawmakers who had been involved in helping Mr. Trump cancel the election called for a White House pardon in the last days of the administration. The committee plans to use the pardon requests as evidence of how those who helped Mr. Trump were aware of guilt for what they had done.
Ms. Cheney did not provide any evidence to support her claim and only appointed one legislator, Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, as the pardon seeker.
In an email, Jay Ostrich, a spokesman for Mr. Perry called the statement “a ridiculous, soulless lie.”
Ms. Cheney promised to disclose evidence in support of upcoming hearings, and a person familiar with the committee’s investigation said the panel had received testimony about the pardon requests.
Mr. Perry coordinated a plan to try to replace the incumbent Attorney General, who resisted Mr. Perry’s attempts. Trump to investigate reports of unfounded election fraud, by a more complacent official. Mr. Perry also backed the idea of encouraging Trump supporters to march on the Capitol on January 6th.
The committee’s next hearing is scheduled for Monday, where the panel plans to explain how Mr. Trump and his allies fueled the “big lie” that the election had been stolen. Two more hearings are scheduled for next week: one on Wednesday on the Justice Department’s attempt to remove the incumbent Attorney General, and another on Thursday on the pressure campaign on Mr. Pence to block or delay the certification of the count of electoral votes.
Three former Justice Department officials have agreed to testify at Wednesday’s hearing, according to a letter sent to the committee on Friday.
The three witnesses were Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting Attorney General, Richard P. Donoghue, the Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Steven A. Engel, the former head of the Law Office. in a tense meeting. before the January 6 attack, where Mr. Trump considered firing Mr. Rosen and install a loyalist in his place.
Even before January 6, government officials under Mr. Trump had discussed invoking 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, agitated by the management of the dismissal by Mr. Trump raised the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment in a meeting with senior Justice Department and FBI officials.
FBI Director-General Andrew G. McCabe had opened a counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Trump with Russia and was pressuring Mr. Rosenstein to appoint a special lawyer. Mr. Rosenstein agreed that possible links between Mr. and Mrs. Trump with Russia, but said that if an investigation uncovered disturbing evidence of Mr. Trump with Russia, the only remedy would be to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Mr Rosenstein then said he had made the calculations and believed there were at least six cabinet officials who would agree to invoke him, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly. Despite the possibility, the idea got nowhere and Mr. Rosenstein appointed Robert S. Mueller III as special adviser.
In the years that followed, there were several revelations about others that had discussed the possibility of invoking the amendment. In 2019, a book by an anonymous administration official explained that senior White House officials believed Mr. Pence would agree to the invocation of the amendment to oust Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence denied this claim.
A veteran CBS News producer named Ira Rosen wrote in her 2021 book about her time working in the news business that Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist until August 2017, had talked to him about the 25th Amendment.
And Mark T. Esper, the last Secretary of Defense confirmed by Mr. Trump wrote in his recent book, A Sacred Oath, about the aftermath of an incident when Mr. Trump issued a diatribe against the military during a meeting with the Joint. Chiefs of Staff in the second half of his term.
“Months later, one of the officers present told me in a phone call that he had gone home that night deeply worried about what he had seen his commander-in-chief,” Mr. Wait, 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 the President’s control,” Mr. “I wanted to understand” what the cabinet had to consider “and what the process was.”
Mr. Esper said that in his opinion, the behavior of Mr. Trump never reached the standard required to invoke the 25th Amendment. But that was before the post-election period, when Mr. Esper had been fired by Mr. Trump.
Two days after the Capitol riot, spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi spoke with General Mark A. Milley, president of the Joint Chiefs.
“That’s bad, but who knows what he might do?” Mrs. Pelosi said, according to the book “Peril,” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. “He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time. So don’t say you don’t know what his mood is.”
“Madam President,” replied General Milley, “I agree with you on everything.”
Luke Broadwater and Katie Benner contributed to the report.