John Bolton admits planning coups d’etat ‘not here, you know, other places’ while discussing January 6

Former National Security AdvisorJohn Bolton appeared on CNN on Tuesday afternoon to discuss committee testimony on the Capitolriot and made reference to his expertise in plotting coups.

“As someone who has helped plan coup d’état — not here but, you know, other places — it takes a lot of work,” Mr Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Mr Bolton began his remarks on his past plotting coups by disagreeing with Mr Tapper’s assertion that “one doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.” He then criticised President Donald Trump, his former boss, for doing all the work that he alluded to doing in his past plotting.

“It was just stumbling around from one idea to another,” Mr Bolton said of Mr Trump. “Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the capitol. As to that, there’s no doubt.”

When Mr Tapper asked Mr Bolton to get into specifics on which countries he has plotted coups in, Mr Bolton alluded to material he wrote about in a recent book on US activities in Venezuela in 2018 and 2019 when he was serving as national security advisor and the US was formally recognising opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s president.