U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos resigned Thursday, becoming the second member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet to leave the riot for his followers at the U.S. Capitol.
In a letter to Trump, he blamed the blame for the chaos in Washington at the feet of the president, who cheered the crowd before they marched on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon as both houses of Congress prepared to certify Col. Joe Biden’s Electoral Law. .
Photographer: Yuri Gripas / Abaca Press / Bloomberg
“You can’t go wrong with the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it’s the turning point for me,” he wrote. “Awesome kids are watching all this and they are learning from us.
DeVos, 62, is among several Trump administration officials who resigned in the wake of the disaster, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who also resigned Thursday.
DeVos, had been one of Trump’s strongest supporters and, along with Chao, one of the longest-serving members of his administration. But he has recently distanced himself from the president, acknowledging that Biden had won the Nov. 3 election, even as Trump continued to make false accusations of manipulating the vote.
In his letter, which was published by the Department of Education, he highlighted what he called the administration’s “many successes,” including its commitment to reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, to which many educators and public health officials objected.
Before: Chao leaves Trump’s cabinet as resignations accelerate in Wake of Riot
“Mr. President, I know for sure that history will show that we were right in our repeated urgency and support for the reopening of schools this year and the recovery of all American students, ”she wrote.
But he added that “we should highlight and celebrate the many successes of your administration on behalf of the American people. Instead, we have to clean up the mess caused by violent protesters who stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to undermine people’s businesses. “
Read more: Trump chose his perfect education secretary to Betsy DeVos
DeVos was appointed a member of the cabinet despite her little experience in education policy. He favored school choice, voucher programs, and charter schools, to the dismay of teachers ’unions and liberal education activists. It also eased the Obama administration’s restrictions on for-profit universities. And in 2019 he received a $ 100,000 fine for violating a judge’s order to stop debt collection efforts against former Corinthian Colleges Inc. alumni.
He grew up in Michigan, where he promoted educational causes, including school choice. She is married to an old woman Amway president Dick DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of private military contractor Blackwater USA and an ally of Trump. His father, Edgar Prince, was an engineer and industrialist.
– With the help of Justin Sink and Andrew Kreighbaum
(Background updates, in the final paragraph.)