{"id":6211,"date":"2021-01-07T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=147377"},"modified":"2021-01-07T20:31:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:31:00","slug":"public-citizen-letter-to-cabinet-secretaries-dont-resign-invoke-the-25th-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/07\/public-citizen-letter-to-cabinet-secretaries-dont-resign-invoke-the-25th-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Citizen Letter to Cabinet Secretaries: Don\u2019t Resign, Invoke the 25th Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON &#8211; Today Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, president and executive vice president of Public Citizen, released an open letter to Trump administration cabinet secretaries urging them to stay on the job and invoke the 25<sup>th<\/sup> amendment to remove presidential authority from President Donald Trump. This letter comes after U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced that, on the heels of a mob attack on the Capitol fueled by President Trump\u2019s rhetoric, she will resign effective January 11. The full letter can be found below and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Chao-resignation2.pdf\">here<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Dear Secretary Elaine Chao and all Trump cabinet members:<\/p>\n<p>I am sure you all are profoundly and appropriately disturbed by what occurred yesterday at the Capitol. As many or perhaps all of you recognize, and as upsetting as it is to acknowledge, it\u2019s impossible not to place primary responsibility for the insurrection on President Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Many of you may now be considering resigning, as Secretary Chao has announced she will do in a few days. I am writing to urge all of you to stay in your posts. While principled resignations would have been appropriate at any other moment in the administration\u2019s tenure, that is no longer this case.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the American people need you to stay on the job and join Vice President Pence in invoking the 25<sup>th<\/sup> amendment to remove presidential authority from Donald J. Trump. President Trump has made manifestly clear that he \u201cis unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.\u201d Permitting him to remain in office even for the next two weeks constitutes a clear and present danger to the nation.<\/p>\n<p>Invoking the 25<sup>th<\/sup> amendment in this way is without precedent and should only be done in the most extreme circumstances. But we are now living in those most extreme circumstances. Your country is relying on you to honor your duty to the Constitution and protect us all.<\/p>\n<div id=\"block-inject-17\" class=\"block-inject block-inject-17\">\n<div id=\"block-block-86\" class=\"block block--block block--block-86\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Robert Weissman <\/p>\n<p>President, Public Citizen<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Gilbert<\/p>\n<p>Vice President, Public Citizen<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2021\/01\/07\/public-citizen-letter-to-cabinet-secretaries-dont-resign-invoke-the-25th-amendment\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2013 Today Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, president and executive vice president of Public Citizen, released an open letter to Trump administration cabinet secretaries urging them to\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6212,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211\/revisions\/6212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}