Fiona Hill: U.S. Capitol Riot Was Trump's Attempt At 'Pulling A Putin'

Mary Papenfuss
·1 min read
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Former National Security Council officer Fiona Hill criticized her former boss, Donald Trump, in a scathing interview on Monday and said he yearned to stay in power like the strongmen he admired.

“The domestic political errands, the way Trump had privatized foreign policy for his own purposes. It was this narrow goal: his desire to stay in power, irrespective of what other people wanted,” Hill told The New York Times Magazine.

Hill said the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was Trump’s attempt at “pulling a Putin.”

“I saw the thread,” she said. “The thread connecting the Zelenskyy phone call to Jan. 6. And I remembered how, in 2020, Putin had changed Russia’s Constitution to allow him to stay in power longer. This was Trump pulling a Putin.”

Hill was present for the initial phase of Trump’s scheme to pressure Volodymyr Zelesnkyy by threatening to withhold military aid unless the Ukraine president dug up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Trump also asked Zelesnkyy to explore the conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election. There is no evidence to support this claim.

“In the course of his presidency, indeed, Trump would come more to resemble Putin in political practice and predilection than he resembled any of his recent American presidential predecessors,” Hill said.

When asked by the Times for a response to her comments, Trump said of Hill: “She doesn’t know the first thing she’s talking about. If she didn’t have the accent she would be nothing.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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