John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, does not believe the commission of inquiry should describe the events of January 6 as a coup. Remarkable: He expresses himself as an expert on coup plots.
“You don’t have to be a genius to make a coup,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Bolton live on US TV. The two discussed another day of hearings held by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the storming of the capital on January 6, 2020.
“I don’t agree,” Bolton replied firmly. “As someone who planned coups himself, I know something like this would require more work,” he casually admits. For Bolton, what Trump did was reprehensible and indefensible, but a coup? No, the whole thing was too annoying for that. Trump jumps from one idea to another. The plans follow each other in quick succession. This is how Trump works.” To make a real coup is business, or so it seemed. “We must not overreact. If we go too far in this classification, we undermine the value of the testimony of the Commission of Inquiry.
Tapper inquired further about Bolton’s experiences with coups, though he did not reveal much. “It wasn’t easy in Venezuela, for example,” he said. In 2019, the United States backed opposition leader Juan Guaido. According to the United States, he was the legitimate president after the elections, and the current president, Nicolás Maduro, had to resign.
