Former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney resigned Thursday morning from his Trump Administration post as envoy to Northern Ireland.
“I can’t do it. I can’t stay … We didn’t sign up for what you saw last night,” Mulvaney told CNBC after a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol and temporarily prevented Congress from certifying the election victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Congress ultimately certified Biden’s election in the early hours of Jan. 7.
Mulvaney criticized Trump’s response to the riot.
The President’s tweet is not enough. He can stop this now and needs to do exactly that. Tell these folks to go home.
— Mick Mulvaney (@MickMulvaney) January 6, 2021
Mulvaney played an outsized role in the Trump Administration after he was tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget by the Trump transition team. He later served as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he clashed with more liberal employees. Mulvaney won a lawsuit filed by the former deputy director of the CFPB, who argued that he had no legal authority to serve as director.
The former South Carolina congressman was later named “acting” Chief of Staff in 2018, and then envoy to Northern Ireland. At that point, he was replaced by Mark Meadows.
While envoy, Mulvaney published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “If He Loses, Trump Will Concede Gracefully.” At the time, Mulvaney promised that “Mr. Trump will be, act and speak like a great president should — win or lose.”
First lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham also resigned in the aftermath of the Capitol riots. Deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger stepped down as well, CNN reported.