Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao was one of the last senior Trump administration officials to learn of the Jan. 6 trauma — because she was stuck in a long line to take photos with agency employees as the riot raged in the Capitol.
Chao testified before the Jan. 6 House committee that the long days leading up to the end of the Trump administration kept her from learning that rioters broke through police cordons, then climbed scaffolding and blew through the Capitol windows and later the House and Senate chambers occupied.
“I was in the department and took farewell photos with employees. So there was a long line and it lasted about the afternoon. And an aide came in about, I think, 3:30 a.m. and said the Capitol had been breached, I think that was the word,” she said, according to an interview transcript released by the House Committee on Jan. 6.
When asked if she was unaware of the events from television or other sources, Chao, whose husband Mitch McConnell was Senate Majority Leader, replied, “I took pictures when I left…”
Stuck in a moment: Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao said she took part in a “long” photo spread with outgoing agency staff on Jan. 6. She said she only found out about the riots in the Capitol hours after the break-in
She said she did not see Trump’s speech on the Ellipse, in which he urged supporters to “fight like hell,” an event other cabinet members also missed. “It’s been a busy day,” she said.
Trump himself has repeatedly attacked the January 6 committee as a witch hunt and has regularly attacked Chao and McConnell.
When asked if she took any official action after learning the news, Chao replied, “I was just about to take pictures. There was a long line of colleagues waiting a long time to take their picture. I didn’t quite understand what the assistant told me,’ she explained.
Upon receiving more information about what was going on at the Capitol, she said, “It was probably at the end of the day.”
Chao has not approached Trump, Vice President Pence, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows or other senior officials, she said, and she has no recollection of a phone call with Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia — who transcripts show is trying to get Trump to resign.
Former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia held talks with other cabinet members after Jan. 6. Mike Pompeo considered his idea of getting Trump to resign “imaginative”.
“I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in democracy,” said Chao, who resigned on Jan. 7, citing the Jan. 6 events
A mob broke through police barriers to enter the Capitol on January 6
Chao and Pompeo each said they missed Trump’s Jan. 6 speech
When asked if she thought Trump met that day, Chao replied, “I wish he had acted differently.”
Scalia testified that they shared a call and discussed what to do after the incident.
She also said she does not recall speaking to Scalia about the Cabinet potentially invoking the 25th Amendment to temporarily impeach a president.
When asked if she would speak up, she said it was the administration’s “waning days” that it was focused on helping its employees “get jobs” and “clean up.”
She phoned Scalia and the honorable man but said she could not recall a conversation between them that day.
Chao, a longtime administration official who was regularly attacked by Trump with slaps to her name that many described as racist, was pressured into why she resigned the following day.
“I came to this country as an immigrant. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in democracy. And that’s how it was — it was a decision I made on my own,” she said.
When asked if she thought Trump met at the moment that day, she replied, “I wish he would have acted differently.”
She said she did not contact Trump directly when she resigned and provided the information to Meadows as a “politeness.”
But when asked if she was mad at Trump or worried it was going to be a bitter conversation, she replied, “No.” She said she didn’t consult with anyone before making her decision to leave .
When asked if she reached out to “any people” at the Capitol that afternoon, she said she didn’t.
Not wanting to interfere with “spousal communications,” her questioner asked if she contacted anyone in a safe location during the riot. “I checked on my husband,” she said.
Another cabinet official, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, testified about inviting former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia to attend a cabinet meeting with Trump.
“And his request to me was: would I be willing to support or attend a cabinet meeting with the President of the United States? I told him I didn’t think that was a productive approach.”
Pompeo said he thought Trump was “unlikely to step down” and that cabinet members should focus on the transition. The committee told Pompeo that Scalia reminded Pompeo that such a meeting could backfire and anger Trump and urged him to take improper action.
Pompeo says it doesn’t match his memory.
“Secretary Scalia, like you, Minister Pompeo, pointed out that there were discussions about the possibility of the President’s resignation, to which you sarcastically replied: ‘Can you imagine how this conversation will go?'” his interviewer said.
Pompeo responded that he had said the likelihood of Trump resigning was “very remote.”
Pompeo was vague on whether he had a specific conversation with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was in the Middle East at the time, about the 25th Amendment.
“I am sure that in some conversations the words ’25. Amendment to the Constitution”. I have no specific recollection of that. But it was never something I dated with anyone that I can remember that was even remotely serious,” he said.
He said he was considering using the 25th Amendment to “imaginatively” remove Trump, Bloomberg News reported.
The soon-to-be-defunct Jan. 6 panel played Scalia’s testimony at a public hearing, saying he told Trump in December 2020 to back down despite Trump’s allegations of voter fraud.
“I told him that I believe, yes, that once those legal procedures were done, if no fraud had been found … I believed that the outcome would have to be admitted,” he said.