
On Thursday night, Trump released a pre-recorded video that said he would not serve a second term. “Why take the risk?” one senior official said. Some officials were also concerned about the optics of holding a cabinet meeting amid national discussions about the 25th Amendment. Some of the secretaries are hesitant to agree to a meeting because of the risk an attempt to invoke the 25th Amendment would face, or that they would draw Trump’s ire. Hanging over the meeting would be the possibility that a majority of the Cabinet could invoke the 25th Amendment and strip Trump of his power as president.Ĭhiefs of staff of federal departments have also been calling each other to discuss the possibility. The two Cabinet secretaries discussed the possibility of demanding the President deliver a public address committing to a peaceful transfer of power, which Trump did Thursday evening. However, three senior administration officials also tell CNN that two Cabinet secretaries have called fellow members of the Cabinet to take their “temperatures” about demanding a Cabinet meeting with the President to confront him about his behavior.

And an administration official tells CNN that Pence himself has not discussed invoking the 25th Amendment with any Cabinet officials.

President Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao also resigned today.Ī source close to Vice President Mike Pence said inquiries about invoking the 25th Amendment have been coming into Pence advisers and those discussions have been under way.īut the source said it is “highly unlikely” that Pence would pursue that path at this point, given that the effort is expected to be unsuccessful. I believe that this behavior was totally unacceptable and, in my own heart, I simply am not able to continue,” McCance-Katz wrote. “It had been my plan to stay until the change in administration occurred, but my plans abruptly changed last evening when … I saw the violent takeover of the Capitol building. “I have chosen to resign today as the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use,” McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for mental health and substance abuse for HHS, wrote in a letter dated today. Pete Marovich/Abaca/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesĮlinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, resigned today in the wake of President Trump’s role and response to mob breaching the US Capitol. Since then, prosecutors said, Taranto has been active online, posting a Facebook video of him in the Capitol on the day of the riot and endorsing a conspiracy theory that the death of Ashli Babbitt - who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as she began to climb through the broken part of a door leading into the Speaker’s Lobby - was a hoax.Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, speaks alongside President Donald Trump on Septemin Washington, DC. Prosecutors say Taranto’s wife told investigators that he had come to Washington because of McCarthy’s offer earlier this year to produce unseen video of the Jan. Officials said he was spotted by law enforcement a few blocks from Obama’s home and fled, though he was chased by Secret Service officers. While livestreaming on YouTube in the neighborhood, Taranto told followers that he was looking for “entrance points,” was going to find a way to the “tunnels underneath their houses” and wanted to get a “good angle on a shot,” according to the detention memo. In a post on Telegram, Taranto wrote: “We got these losers surrounded! See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s.” That’s a reference to John Podesta, the former chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Democratic presidential campaign. Prosecutors said that on the day he was arrested, Taranto reposted a Truth Social post from Trump containing what Trump claimed was Obama’s home address. Prosecutors detailed a litany of what they said were examples of Taranto’s erratic behavior before his arrest, including threatening statements about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and claims on his YouTube livestream that he intended to blow up the National Institute of Standards and Technology in suburban Maryland. Taranto was arrested June 29 after prosecutors say he showed up in Obama’s neighborhood on the same day that former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform what he claimed was Obama’s home address. Taranto’s lawyer said the judge’s decision will be appealed.


Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui agreed with federal prosecutors that Taylor Taranto represents a danger to the community if he is released. WASHINGTON (AP) - A man charged in the Capitol riot who had guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his van when he was arrested near former President Barack Obama’s Washington home will remain in jail while he awaits trial, a federal magistrate judge ruled Wednesday.
