Jason Schmid, a top GOP aide in the House Armed Services Committee has resigned citing his disgust for the 147 Republican lawmakers who backed President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election after it fueled the U.S. Capitol’s deadly insurrection last week.
In a blistering resignation letter first obtained by Politico, the longtime congressional aide rebuked House Republicans who objected to President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory during the Jan. 6 joint session, which was abruptly paused as Trump’s supporters raided the building in an attack that sent lawmakers under desks and into bunkers to shelter in place and ultimately left five people dead.
“Anyone who watched those horrible hours unfold should have been galvanized to rebuke these insurrectionists in the strongest terms,” Schmid wrote in the letter, calling perpetrators of the violence “domestic enemies of the Constitution.”
“Instead, some members whom I believed to be leaders in the defense of the nation chose to put political theater ahead of the defense of the Constitution and the republic,” Schmid said.
The former aide chastised the GOP members of the House Armed Services Committee — where he has served for more than four years — for backing what he called a “poisonous lie” that the election was stolen.
Of those House Republicans who voted against Biden’s win in Arizona and Pennsylvania, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) who is formally addressed in the letter, will be the committee’s top Republican. Twelve other GOP members of the committee joined Rogers’ in backing the charade.
Schmid’s resignation letter comes after the House unveiled an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” after Trump fueled his supporters to descend on the Capitol on Wednesday and then gleefully watched as they tore through barricades to raid the building.
The longtime aide said that “Congressional enablers” of the violent mobbing of the Capitol have further agitated the potential of foreign conflict, making it “more likely, not less.”
A former Army intelligence analyst who was wounded in Iraq, Schmid was also particularly pointed in his anger that members of the military had been involved in the attack calling for their immediate expulsion from the force, citing a loss of the “credibility needed to accomplish this work.”
“All of our words and actions in the coming weeks and days will reveal those who believe in defending the Constitution and those who stand only for self-interest and sectarianism,” Schmid wrote. “There can be no reconciliation and healing without accountability.”
Schmid’s resignation follows a series of others last week, including three Cabinet secretaries who resigned their posts in the aftermath of the attack, just days before Trump is set to leave office, including most recently acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf who announced his plans to resign on Monday.
Rad Schmid’s full resignation letter below:
Welcome to sanity, Jason.
Montana’s newly elected US Rep. Matt Rosendale and US Senator Steve Daines still refuse to acknowledge the Biden-Harris victory and refuse to declare the election was fair and not a fraud. They are still perpetuating the lies in Montana.
Furthermore, Rosendale refused to recognize the electoral college vote on Jan 6th and after the Trump directed insurection.
Rosendale just today told the Billings Gazette that the Democrats are blowing things out of proportion and using this for another political with hunt!
The Republican elected officials in Montana are still stirring up the insurgency and this is going to get worse! There are a lot of radical right wingers and groups in Montana feeding off these lies and disproven conspiracies still being spread by tax payer funded politicians. These officials at the state level are causing this insurrection. When will Steve Daines and Matt Rosendale be held accountable. They need to be charged by prosecutors and let the tapes and interviews speak for themselves in a criminal trial.
Let’s see, after 6 days of disgust he resigns. Where the hell have you been for the last 4 years, asshole. Jan. 6th, was just the cherry on the whipped cream. You and your other Republican staffers are cowardly scum, who deserve to be hounded to your garves as enablers and accessories to sedition and treason against our Republic.
Good for Jason Schmid! It takes courage and principle to publicly stand up to power in a forthright and honest manner, giving up your job in the process. Everyday, the dedicated civil servants who work in our government give shame to the political renegades like too many in the Republican party whose only motive is to challenge and do damage to our government and our country.
We should all wish Mr. Schmid good fortune in the future.
Good but small potatoes.