US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has submitted her resignation, citing the remarks President Donald Trump made in front of protesters in DC on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Thursday.
At the rally, which was supposed to be peaceful but later grew violent, President Trump urged his supporters to keep fighting to overturn the election results.
"There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me."
Hours earlier, DeVos denounced the siege of US Capitol building saying that an "angry mob cannot be allowed to attack our Capitol", as the congressional certification of the 2020 election results was underway.
— Secretary Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) January 6, 2021
The report comes as President Trump has told Americans in a video message that he concedes the 2020 presidential election, acknowledging his challenge to the results was unsuccessful. Congress certified Biden as the next US president earlier in the day.
Wednesday's events prompted several Trump officials to either resign or consider doing so, with Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s former chief of staff, who told CNBC that he stepped down as special US envoy to Northern Ireland.
US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, announced her resignation on Thursday, saying “our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed”.
Others who have decided to leave the Trump administration include Stephanie Grisham, former chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump; Matt Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser; Sarah Matthews, deputy White House press secretary; Anna Cristina "Rickie" Niceta, social secretary at the White House; Ryan Tully, the National Security Council's senior director for European and Russian Affairs; Tyler Goodspeed, acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; and John Costello, deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and security at the Commerce Department.
