Bolton disclosed this to CNN after the day's congressional hearing on January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
John Bolton, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former National Security Adviser to the immediate past United States of America Donald Trump, said on Tuesday that he had helped plan attempted coups in foreign countries.
Bolton disclosed this to CNN after the day's congressional hearing on January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The panel's lawmakers on Tuesday accused former President Donald Trump of inciting the violence in a last-ditch bid to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.
Speaking to CNN anchor Jake Tapper, however, Bolton suggested Trump was not competent enough to pull off a “carefully planned coup d’etat”, later adding: “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat – not here but, you know, [in] other places – it takes a lot of work. And that’s not what he [Trump] did.”
Tapper asked Bolton which attempts he was referring to, Al Jazeera reports.
“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” Bolton said, before mentioning Venezuela. “It turned out not to be successful. Not that we had all that much to do with it but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed,” he said.
Bolton supported Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for the military to back his effort to remove socialist President Nicolas Maduro in 2019 when he was serving as National Security Agency (NSA).
He argued that Maduro’s re-election was illegitimate. Ultimately Maduro remained in power.
“I feel like there’s other stuff you’re not telling me [beyond Venezuela],” the CNN anchor said, prompting a reply from Bolton: “I’m sure there is.”