Storm on the Capitol
“Coup expert” John Bolton: Donald Trump is not capable of a coup d’état
“Expertise” from former White House security adviser John Bolton (right): Trump incapable of organizing a coup.
© Douliery Olivier / Abaca / Picture Alliance
The sentence was casual, but contains a monstrosity: Donald Trump is not capable of a coup, judges former security adviser John Bolton. How does he know? He used to prepare coups himself.
A parliamentary inquiry is trying to prove that the storming of the Capitol was part of a long-planned coup d’état by ex-US President Donald Trump. John Bolton, national security adviser during Trump’s tenure, thinks that’s absurd. The former president is more of a “disturbance of power” than the leader of an “assault on democracy,” Bolton said in a CNN interview.
In his view, Trump has not attempted a coup because it requires cunning and sophisticated planning. That doesn’t suit the 76-year-old: “Donald Trump doesn’t do things that way,” Bolton said in an interview with CNN achorman Jake Tapper. With him it’s more like “walking from one (…) idea to the next. One plan that falls through and another one comes up”.
Bolton: Donald Trump just wanted to buy time
And then the ex-diplomat, who is regarded as the architect of the Iraq war in 2003, lets the cat out of the bag: “As someone who helped plan a coup d’etat, not here but in other countries,” admitted Bolton, he knew that there was a lot Work requires overthrowing a government and changing a political system. “And he didn’t do that,” Bolton said. Trump “unleashed” the rioters on the Capitol to gain more time to challenge the state election results. It was not about breaking the constitution. However, Trump’s measures to annul the election results cannot be justified.
Bolton’s reasoning gave the CNN interviewer no peace. He wanted to know whether he had been involved in successful coups. He would give no further details, said Bolton, but referred to a failed coup d’état in Venezuela. That was in 2019, President Nicolas Maduro was about to be overthrown, and the US government “didn’t have much to do with it.”
“Not much” to do with coup in Venezuela
At that time, demonstrators led by the chairman of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, took to the streets. Guaidó is still recognized by the US as interim president of Venezuela. And this despite the fact that the coup was unsuccessful at the time. “The idea that Donald Trump is half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is ridiculous,” Bolton finally drew a parallel to the ex-president, for whom Bolton worked for around a year and a half before resigning as security adviser.
Anyone who believes Trump intended more than delaying the certification of the election of Joe Biden as his successor is exaggerating the events of January 6, 2021. Bolton, who worked for a total of four presidents: “I think that’s a real risk for the committee that did a lot of good work.”