As you all know former Deputy NSA John Bolton is NOT a fan of President Trump; that has been well established. And you would think he’d join the chorus of Democrats claiming Trump planned an insurrection or coup on January 6th.
But that’s not what he did in this interview with Jake Tapper.
Watch:
You’ll hear Bolton say that so much of what Trump did after the election is indefensible, but he also says it’s a mistake to think Trump planned a coup against the Capitol. In fact he calls it an overreaction, so much so that it is threatening to undermine the work of the committee.
When Tapper disagreed and claimed it doesn’t take someone who is brilliant to plan a coup d’etat, Bolton dropped this one: “I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coup d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work.”
Of course he wouldn’t say much more than that, but overall point was that Trump wasn’t a threat to democracy or the Constitution that day.
You won’t agree with everything Bolton says in this clip, but he clearly doesn’t think Trump was doing anything other than hoping to send some elections back to the states. That’s it. And honestly it was a good defense of Trump, for what it’s worth.