A pair of officials in the Trump administration with ties to the accounts receivable management industry announced their resignations yesterday in response to what happened in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.
Betsey DeVos, the Secretary of Education, and Mick Mulvaney, the U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland who was formerly the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau both submitted letters of resignation to President Trump, blaming him for inciting protestors who then overtook the Capitol and forced the evacuation of members of Congress.
Elaine Chao, the Transportation Secretary, also resigned yesterday.
“There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos wrote in her resignation letter, which was released by the Department of Education. “Impressionable children are watching all of this, and they are learning from us.”
DeVos was headed out of office in two weeks anyway, following the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. President-elect Biden has nominated Miguel Cardona, the Connecticut education commissioner, to be his Secretary of Education.
DeVos was frequently criticized for allowing what her detractors referred to as “aggressive” collection efforts to occur. In fact, she was held in contempt of court and fined $100,000 for not following a judge’s order to stop collecting on certain student loans. She was just the third Cabinet secretary to ever be held in contempt and the other two instances were reversed on appeal.
Mulvaney, meanwhile, attempted to separate himself from the president’s actions by resigning, while still citing the “long list of successes that we can be proud of,” during an interview on TV. He did note that all of the successes “went away” following the events that occurred at the Capitol.
Mulvaney said he expects other members of the administration to resign in the coming days in reaction to the incident.
