WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has become the second Cabinet secretary to resign a day after a pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In a resignation letter Thursday, DeVos blamed President Trump for inflaming tensions in the violent assault on the seat of the nation’s democracy. She said, “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.”
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao tendered her resignation earlier Thursday. News of DeVos’ resignation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
In a farewell letter to Congress earlier this week, DeVos urged lawmakers to reject policies supported by President-elect Joe Biden, and to protect Trump administration policies that Biden has promised to eliminate.
DeVos had been one of Trump’s most loyal and longest-serving Cabinet secretaries. In recent days, though, even as Trump disputed the election results, DeVos acknowledged that Joe Biden had defeated him.
DeVos joined several other Trump administration officials who quit with less than two weeks left in Trump’s term, in protest of the violence that unfolded Wednesday.
In addition to Chao, Mick Mulvaney quit his job as the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland.
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