The Daily Beast reports:

High-ranking national security officials have spent the last 24 hours scrambling to figure out how to keep their commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, from inciting further violence at home to spilling national secrets to sparking last-minute confrontations with international foes.

The concerns in the upper echelons of the administration’s national security community range from fears inside the Pentagon that the president will do or say something that effectively throws the U.S. into a military confrontation with another country to anxieties in the intelligence apparatus that Trump will divulge classified intelligence on his way out, according to four officials who spoke with The Daily Beast about the matter. All requested to remain anonymous in order to speak more openly about the discussions.

“This isn’t a hypothetical anymore,” said one senior administration official. “This is real. What happened yesterday changed the calculus. People are concerned about [the president’s] state of mind.”

After a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol building Wednesday, several high-ranking national security and White House officials were on the edge of resigning, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Officials called and texted one another, probing whether they would call it quits. Several did step down, including deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger. But after a series of calls from prominent GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), leading national security officials decided to stay in office, at least for the time being, in order to preserve cohesiveness but also to provide safeguards in the coming weeks. One of those individuals asked to stay on is national security adviser Robert O’Brien. Officials inside the State Department close to the secretary say they are unaware of any plans by Mike Pompeo to step down.

For those who have decided to stay on, their main focus is preventing President Trump from pushing the country further into chaos. The fears, some of which were laid out by Axios Thursday, have grown so intense over the last day that officials have contacted leading lawmakers on Capitol Hill to informally brief them about the situation, according to two congressional aides familiar with the matter.

“The president was trying to stage a coup. There was little chance of it happening, but there was enough chance that the former defense secretaries had to put out that letter, which was the final nail through that effort. They prevented the military from being involved in any coup attempt. But instead, Trump tried to incite it himself,” said Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser. “This could have turned into a full-blown coup had he had any of those key institutions following him. Just because it failed or didn’t succeed doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.” [Continue reading…]