Asked last month whether Wiles could be replaced soon, Trump said there was “zero chance” and that “Susie is here and she’s gonna be here for a long time”.

Wiles, 69, recently had cancer but announced in September that she was in remission.

She had planned to stay in her role until the end of the year or early next year, sources familiar with her thinking told CBS. However, the president accelerated her departure, the sources said.

Wiles is not the only Trump administration official to leave following the midterms. Several justice department (DOJ) officials, who carried out some of Trump’s top priorities, have also resigned.

Harmeet Dhillon, the chief of the civil rights division – which focused on non-citizen voting and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives – stepped down on Thursday. She also put a greater focus on protecting gun owners’ rights and adopted legal positions that opposed civil rights protections for transgender people.

John Eisenberg, head of the DOJ’s National Security Division – who had also worked in Trump’s first administration – stepped down, as did Jason Reding Quiñones, a US attorney in Florida, was at the centre of Trump’s ​efforts to use the DOJ to prosecute perceived political foes.