Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon with host Lindsey Reiser, Donald Trump biographer Tim O'Brien said the former president can't be pleased that former members of his cabinet are speaking privately with investigators working for the House Jan 6 committee looking into the Capitol insurrection.
Reacting to reports that former secretary of state Mike Pompeo might join ex-Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, former Education Department head Betsy DeVos and Mick Mulvaney voluntarily testifying, O'Brien said Trump is likely "rattled" by the news.
As host Reiser noted, questions about Trump administration officials considering invoking the 25th Amendment, that would have stripped the now-former president of his powers around the time of the Trump-inspired riot, seem to be the focus of the interviews.
"Do you think Trump is rattled by these senior members of his administration cooperating?" she asked.
"I can't get inside his head that completely," O'Brien admitted. "But Trump has always believed in unwavering loyalty, it is usually a one-way street, he never gives the people around him as much loyalty as he expects and I think throughout most of his presidency that was a pretty firm wall."
"I don't think he saw many people in his inner circle, they quit before they really decided to rat him out, and Trump rewarded some of them like Roger Stone with pardons." he continued. "I think the work of the Jan. 6 committee has convinced those sort of people like Mnuchin, like Pompeo to decide to testify. It's unfortunately very late in the process but I think they took their cues from people like Bill Barr, from conservative Republicans like Liz Cheney, who decided to partake in that process because it has merit, because Trump tried to stage a coup."
"I think the substance of what the committee appears to be asking Mnuchin and Pompeo and others about, Betsy DeVos too I believe, is whether not they were so alarmed by what happened on Jan. 6 that they wanted to invoke the 25th Amendment and force Trump's removal from office," he elaborated. "So he has to be rattled by that, because these are people in the past, Mick Mulvaney is another, who never would have publicly gone on the other side against him."
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