Washington: Former US national security advisor John Bolton has admitted that he helped plan coups in several countries while arguing that the January 6, 2021 riot in Washington fell short of such efforts, Khaleej Times reported on Wednesday.
The attack on the US Capitol was the result of then-president Donald Trump “just stumbling around from one idea to another,” Bolton said in an interview on television.
Bolton said, “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work”.
Bolton – who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 – did not specify which governments he had helped to overthrow, but while in his post, he said that he had advocated US military intervention in Venezuela.
January 6 was “not an attack on our democracy. It’s Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It’s a once in a lifetime occurrence,” said Bolton.
An unabashed hawk, Bolton served in the US Departments of Justice and State during three Republican administrations, starting with Ronald Reagan’s in the 1980s.
He also served as the US ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W Bush.
Bolton unrepentantly pushed for the US invasion of Iraq and has voiced support for bombing Iran and North Korea – an interventionist approach to foreign policy that put him at odds with Trump, who fired him in 2019.
Bolton’s comments on the January 6 riots came as a congressional committee works to determine whether Trump or his associates had a role in planning or encouraging the violent insurrection that left five people dead and 140 police officers injured.
