04 May 2024,   17:09
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Former senior U.S. official John Bolton admits to planning attempted foreign coups

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former White House national security adviser, said on Tuesday that he had helped plan attempted coups in foreign countries.

Bolton made the remarks to CNN after the day’s congressional hearing into the Jan 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.

“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 added.

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