Nine of his White House team quit... more could follow

AT least nine members of Donald Trump’s White House – including one member of his cabinet – resigned yesterday in protest over the storming of the US Capitol.

Mick Mulvaney, the President’s former chief of staff and special US envoy to Northern Ireland, said as he resigned: ‘I can’t do it, I can’t stay’.

He said that others who decided to stay are doing so ‘ because they’re worried the President might put someone worse’ in their place.

Mr Mulvaney hinted that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a staunch Trump loyalist, may be about to step down too.

Among the others who quit were Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary and the first member of the Trump cabinet to go. She is the wife of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who turned against the President this week and had been in post for the whole of Mr Trump’s term.

Mrs Chao described yesterday’s break-in at the Capitol as ‘a traumatic and entirely avoidable event’.

She added: ‘As I’m sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside’.

Matt Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, handed in his resignation and Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump, abruptly resigned. John Costello, deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and security at the Commerce Department, quit and said Mr Trump had ‘disregarded and diminished the rule of law’.

Deputy White House secretary Sarah Matthews quit, as did Rickie Niceta, White House social secretary – one of the longest serving members of the Trump administration.

Ryan Tully, senior director for European and Russian Affairs, resigned from the National Security Council. And Tyler Goodspeed, the acting chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House, said he was going too.