- Fiona Hill, a former national security official at the White House, said President Donald Trump attempted a “self-coup” by inciting his base of supporters to invade the Capitol on January 6.
- In an opinion article published on Monday by Politico, Hill detailed why he considered the January 6 incident a “coup”, although there are some who disagree with it.
- “Trump disguised what he was doing operating in plain sight, talking openly about his intentions,” wrote Hill. “He normalized his actions so that people would accept them. I have been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades and I recognize the signs of a coup when I see them.”
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A former White House national security official said President Donald Trump attempted a “self-coup” by inciting his supporters to break into the Capitol building.
Fiona Hill, who served in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations and was a key witness in Trump’s impeachment, wrote an article on Monday detailing what she believed to be the president’s role in the January 6 uprising attempt.
“Since last Wednesday, people have been discussing how to call what happened on the United States Capitol – was it a riot? An uprising? An insurrection?” Hill wrote in the opinion article published by Politico. “I have been public in calling this a scam, but others disagree.”
She explained the reasons why she considered the events that took place on the Capitol a coup, saying that the unprecedented invasion of the Capitol was the “culmination of a series of actions and events carried out or instigated by Trump so that he could maintain the presidency that they are equivalent to together. to an attempted self-coup. “
“Trump disguised what he was doing by operating in plain sight, talking openly about his intentions,” Hill wrote. “He normalized his actions so that people would accept them.”
“I have been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades and I recognize the signs of a coup when I see them.”
Read More: Trump was deliberately ‘trying to stage a coup’, said a former White House national security official
In the article, Hill described what he called the standard “checklist” for scams that analysts use to assess whether certain incidents can be considered a scam, which includes military, communications, judiciary, government institutions and the legislature.
“The truth is that for the past four years, Trump has been testing the United States’ democratic system to see if anyone will control it,” wrote the former national security officer. “Consider how many times he said he ‘deserved’ two or even three terms because he was treated ‘unfairly’ or ‘cheated’ during the first two years of his presidency by the ‘Russian fraud’, Mueller’s investigation and impeachment trial of the year past. “
“Throughout 2020, when his assessments faltered, the president laid the groundwork for what would become the Big Lie that he won the election,” she added.
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She went on to ask Congressional Republicans who supported Trump’s challenges to election results to “take personal responsibility for their actions in support of Trump’s coup attempt” in order to “restore democratic norms and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. . “
“They must tell their constituents the truth about the election and what the president tried to do in January 2021,” said Hill. “They owe it to the people they represent and also to the country they serve.”