Mark Esper privately described Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as 'superheroes' for voting to impeach Trump after the Capitol riot, book says

• Trump's former defense secretary described Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as "superheroes" after they voted to impeach Trump following the Capitol riot.

• That's according to "This Will Not Pass," by NYT's Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin.

• Cheney and Kinzinger now sit on the House select committee investigating the insurrection.

Donald Trump's former defense secretary, Mark Esper, said that two House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Capitol riot were "superheroes."

That's according to "This Will Not Pass," by The New York Times reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, an early copy of which was obtained by Insider.

The book says that Esper privately described Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger as "superheroes" after they joined eight other House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump on one charge of incitement of insurrection.

Cheney and Kinzinger now serve on the bipartisan House select committee investigating the deadly siege.

Esper served as Trump's defense secretary from 2019 to 2020. He was fired on November 9, 2020, days after Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.

Esper's ouster came after months of strife with Trump. Among other things, the defense secretary quietly worked with Congress to rename military bases that were named after Confederate leaders, a move Trump strongly opposed; and he publicly broke with Trump on whether active-duty troops should be deployed to quell civil unrest following the police murder of George Floyd.

Trump was said to be livid with Esper and wanted to fire him at the time but was talked out of doing so by other administration officials, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Esper was the first Cabinet-level official Trump fired as part of his post-election purge. In the days after, the president also terminated Chris Krebs, the US's top cybersecurity official who had spent weeks publicly batting down Trump's conspiracy theories suggesting the election was plagued with widespread fraud.

The Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021 sparked a slew of resignations from other Cabinet-level and senior Trump administration officials.

Among those who resigned were White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham; deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews; education secretary Betsy DeVos; transportation secretary Elaine Chao; special envoy to Ireland and former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger; and senior cybersecurity official John Costello.

Insider has reached out to representatives for Esper for comment.

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