<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654810324012,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017d-00b6-db7d-abfd-7cb766d10000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654810324012,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017d-00b6-db7d-abfd-7cb766d10000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_54718075", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1028535"} }); ","_id":"00000181-4a61-d702-a3cf-4fe1a93e0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedAfter rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, there was some chatter within the Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment against the president, according to former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
DeVos said she explored the feasibility of using the 25th Amendment to oust former President Donald Trump, but then-Vice President Mike Pence quickly dashed any hopes of backing the initiative, so she tendered her resignation the following day out of dismay over the riot.
TUCKER CARLSON: INVOKE 25TH AMENDMENT TO REMOVE BIDEN FROM POWER
“I spoke with the vice president and just let him know I was there to do whatever he wanted and needed me to do or help with, and he made it very clear that he was not going to go in that direction or that path,” DeVos told USA Today. “I spoke with colleagues. I wanted to get a better understanding of the law itself and see if it was applicable in this case. There were more than a few people who had those conversations internally.”
Under the 25th Amendment, a president’s Cabinet can deem him or her “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of office via a majority vote and oust the commander in chief.
Trump held a rally at the White House ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6 and railed against the 2020 election results. Following his speech, supporters stormed the Capitol building in a dramatic scene that ultimately lead to the creation of the House select committee investigating the riot.
“There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos wrote Trump in her resignation letter.
DeVos’s remarks were published the day the Jan. 6 committee is set to hold its first prime-time public hearing.
Members of the Jan. 6 panel have signaled they intend to draw a line connecting Trump’s efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election to the Capitol riot. The violence briefly disrupted the process of lawmakers certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump’s fixation on his electoral loss meant that his “mind was elsewhere” in the months that followed the 2020 election, which stymied DeVos’s efforts to pursue additional policy objectives in the time that remained, she argued.
“I really felt that everything I could accomplish in office had been accomplished based on that reality and that dynamic,” she told USA Today. “When I saw what was happening on Jan. 6 and didn’t see the president step in and do what he could have done to turn it back or slow it down or really address the situation, it was just obvious to me that I couldn’t continue.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DeVos served as the secretary of education from 2017 to 2021 and is set to release a book describing parts of her tenure June 21. The book is titled Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child.
