U.S. HEALTH CHIEF ALEX AZAR QUITS

President Trump's "actions and rhetoric" have tarnished the administration's legacy, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a resignation letter submitted this week, Maggie Fox reported for CNN.

Azar submitted the standard resignation letter for a Cabinet secretary to offer an outgoing president, dated January 12 and obtained by CNN Friday, January 15, 2021, in Manila.

In the letter, addressed to President Trump, Azar laid out what he considered to be the best accomplishments of HHS over the past four years. "Unfortunately, the actions and rhetoric following the election, especially during this past week, threaten to tarnish these and other historic legacies of this Administration," Azar wrote in the letter.

"The attacks on the Capitol were an assault on our democracy and on the tradition of peaceful transitions of power that the United States of America first brought to the world," Azar wrote in the letter, first reported by the New York Times.

"I implore you to continue to condemn unequivocally any form of violence, to demand that no one attempt to disrupt the inaugural activities in Washington or elsewhere, and to continue to support unreservedly the peaceful and orderly transition of power on January 20, 2021."

Azar said he plans to stay in his role until Jan. 20, when the president-elect Joe Biden's team takes over.

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