Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary and communications director for former President Donald Trump, said Thursday that she and more than a dozen other former members of Trump's White House plan to meet next week to try to keep him from running for office again.
Grisham, appearing on CNN on the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, did not say what plans the group had to ensure Trump would not run again or who the other members were, but said they numbered 15 to 20 and included people both above and below her in rank.
Grisham is one of several Trump officials who resigned her position on Jan. 6, 2021, following the riots at the Capitol. At that time, Grisham had moved back to the position of chief of staff for then-first lady Melania Trump.
CNN spoke to several former officials who have been critical of Trump and whom the news organization believes have been invited to the meeting, set to be held in person and via Zoom, according to Grisham.
Christopher Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, declined to say whether he would attend. Sarah Tinsley, an aide to former top Trump adviser John Bolton, told CNN she would be attending, as did former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci; former top DHS official Miles Taylor, who wrote the "Anonymous" essay saying he was working to restrain Trump from inside the White House; and Olivia Troye, a former adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence.
"I can say that next week a group of former Trump staff are going to come together, administration officials, are going to come together and we're going to talk about how we can formally do some things to try and stop him and also, you know, the extremism, that kind of violence and rhetoric that has been talked about and continues to divide our country," Grisham said of the meeting.
Grisham said that after next week's meeting she hopes to "travel the country and talk to people who are believers like I once was."
Grisham's announcement comes one day after she me met with the House select committee on the events of Jan. 6. She told CNN she talked with members of the committee for an hour and "answered every question they asked of me, and I will continue to cooperate with them."
Most members of Trump's administration have opted not to cooperate with the committee, citing the former president's claim of executive privilege. Current officeholder Joe Biden has declined to extend the privilege to his predecessor, and in a speech marking the anniversary of the attack, blamed Trump for inciting it.
Trump fired back that Biden's speech was "political theater" meant to distract from his failed presidency.
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