Donald Trump failed attempted self-coup

"...congressional Republicans will have to take personal responsibility for their actions in support of Trump’s coup attempt."- Fiona Hill

Yes it was a failed self-coup! Donald Trump is a corrupt failure!

Echo opinion published in the History News Network (HNN) and Politico.  By Fiona Hill*

Since the violence at the US Capitol, on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, people have been arguing what to call what happened at the – was it a riot? An uprising? An insurrection? 

I’ve been public in calling it a coup, but others disagree. Some have said it’s not a coup, because the U.S. military and other armed groups weren’t involved, and some because Donald Trump didn’t invoke his presidential powers in support of the mob that broke into the Capitol. Others point out that no one has claimed or proved there was a secret plan directed by Trump. Moreover, Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election could never have succeeded in the first place.

These observations are based on the idea that a coup is a sudden, violent seizure of power involving clandestine plots and military takeovers. 

By contrast, Trump’s goal was to keep himself in power, and his actions were taken over a period of months and in slow motion.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a coup attempt. Trump disguised what he was doing by operating in plain sight, talking openly about his intent. He normalized his actions so people would accept them. I’ve been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them.

Technically, what Trump attempted is what’s known as a “self-coup” and Trump isn’t the first leader to try it. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of the first Napoleon) pulled one off in France in December 1851 to stay in power beyond his term. Then he declared himself Emperor, Napoleon III. More recently, Nicolas Maduro perpetrated a self-coup in Venezuela after losing the 2017 elections.

The storming of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, was the culmination of a series of actions and events taken or instigated by Trump so he could retain the presidency that, together, amounts to an attempt at a self-coup. This was not a one-off or brief episode. Trump declared “election fraud” immediately on November 4 even while the votes were still being counted. He sought to recount and rerun the November 2020 presidential election so that he, not President-elect Joe Biden, was the winner. In Turkey, in 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan successfully did the same thing; he had called elections to strengthen his presidency, but his party lost its majority in the parliament. He challenged the results in the courts, marginalized the opposition, and forced what he blatantly called a “re-run election.” He tried again in the Istanbul mayoral election in 2019, but was thwarted.




There’s a standard coup “checklist” analysts use to evaluate coups. We can evaluate Trump’s moves to prevent the peaceful transfer of executive power against it. To successfully usurp or hold power, you need to control the military and paramilitary units, communications, the judiciary, government institutions, and the legislature; and mobilize popular support.

Let’s see how well this applies to what Trump has done.

The Military: During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Trump drew Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper out of a White House meeting to follow him for a provocative photo-op, in front of a historic church. Paramilitary forces under the president’s command cleared a passage for his group across Lafayette Square. Trump was testing the military and the Pentagon to see if he could turn the U.S. armed forces into his own “Pretorian Guard.” The blowback from this episode emphasized the nonpolitical position of the U.S. military, but there was sufficient lingering concern that just days before January 6, 10 former Defense secretaries—including Esper, who had been forced out of his office for insufficient loyalty—felt compelled to issue an unprecedented public letter reminding Defense Department officials of their oath to uphold the Constitution.

Communications: In the old days, coup plotters would seize the Central Telegraph or Post Office, and later, radio and TV towers. Trump put a loyalist in charge of the Post Office. He did not take TV and radio by storm, but he discredited the “mainstream media” that was critical of his actions as the “enemy of the people” and recruited or pressured Fox News, Newsmax, OAN and social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, into participants in his efforts to sway public opinion in his favor. Twitter, in essence, was Trump’s equivalent of the TV and radio tower. He directly messaged the 88 million people who “followed” his account. 

Trump used (Maine Writer- I would say tRumph "mis-used!) social media and cable news to propagate false self-serving narratives, reinforce messages to provide justification for his actions, and mobilize his supporters.

The judiciary: With the help of Republican lawmakers, Trump stacked federal courts with what he kept calling “his judges.” He successfully pushed through the appointments of three new Supreme Court justices ahead of the presidential election. He made his expectation clear that if the Supreme Court had to settle an election dispute, then “his justices” would tilt the verdict in his favor. Erdogan did the same in Turkey, purging the judiciary and installing loyalists who facilitated his rerun of the 2015, election and sentenced political opponents to long prison terms. Trump frequently called for investigations into his opponents and for courts and law enforcement to “lock them all up!”

Government institutions: As in Turkey, Trump purged Cabinet members and career officials who resisted him. He bypassed Congress and installed acting officials in crucial national security positions like the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, and, briefly, the director of National Intelligence. He made it crystal clear that personal loyalty was the primary factor for candidate selection. He removed Esper after he lost the election. Attorney General William Barr resigned in the same period amid rumors he would be sacked for failing to declare massive election fraud. Trump wanted officials in place in January 2021 who were entirely beholden to him and likely to support his efforts to stay in power.

The legislature: Finally, Trump usurped the Republican Party. He claimed the more than 74 million who voted for him last November as his personal base—his popular support. He threatened to destroy the careers of Republican members of Congress who did not favor overturning the election result. At the January 6 rally preceding the storming of the Capitol, Donald Trump Jr. even referred to the GOP as the “Trump Republican Party.” In the end, even after the Capitol was seized by Trump’s violent mob, 147 Republican members of Congress, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, did endorse some of Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results and overturn the constitutional order. So did Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and six other politically ambitious senators who wanted to tap into Trump’s popular support. In this way, Trump’s control of the legislature and a significant popular mandate was almost within his reach.

The truth is that, for the past four years, Trump has been stress testing the U.S. democratic system to see if anyone will rein him in. Consider how many times he stated that he “deserved” two or even three terms in office because he was treated “unfairly” or “cheated” out of the first two years of his presidency by the “Russia hoax,” the Mueller investigation and last year's impeachment trial. 

Throughout 2020, when his poll ratings faltered, the president laid the groundwork for what would become the Big Lie, that he (falsely!) won the election. He said in advance that the ballot was “rigged” and that he could lose only if “they” stole the election. “They” was a domestic enemy that he manufactured in broad strokes for his grassroots base to rise up against: Democrats, liberals, globalists, radical socialists, communists, antifa leftists, the Black Lives Matter movement, the mainstream media, George Soros, various other “bogey” men and women, deep state bureaucrats, and even congressional Republicans, whom he labeled “RINOs” (“Republicans in Name Only”) and “Never Trumpers.”





After the election was declared in favor of Biden, Trump refused to concede. He never stopped lying about the outcome to his base and the rest of America. He deployed Rudy Giuliani and his legal team to contest every single postelection juncture. He harangued state election officials in phone calls and in person to intimidate them into repudiating or even changing the vote tallies. He told Vice President Mike Pence to block the formal election certification process in Congress, which was beyond his constitutional authority. When Pence refused, Trump rallied thousands of his supporters to “stop the steal” on Capitol Hill.

So, what thwarted Trump’s slow motion, in-plain-sight attempt at a self-coup? Fortunately, there was pushback from all the key institutions you need for a coup. First, the military and other parts of the government resisted Trump’s efforts to personalize their power. Second, major media outlets reported the facts truthfully. Social media outlets flagged the president’s lies about the election—albeit belatedly—and Twitter and Facebook ultimately cut off his accounts. Third, the judiciary and courts held firm. “Trump judges,” all the way up to the Supreme Court, respected their oath of office and rejected the president’s appeals to overturn legitimate election results. Fourth, state and local government officials refused to be swayed. They repeatedly called out the lie that Trump had won the election. Finally, in the legislature, the vice president performed his constitutional role, as did the Republican Senate majority leader and most of the Senate. The only two elements that rallied behind the president’s coup attempt were the handful of senators and the majority of House Republicans and his popular support, in the form of an insurgency—the mob that stormed the Capitol.

The good news for the United States is that Trump’s self-coup failed. The bad news is that his supporters still believe the false narrative, the Big Lie that he won the election. Trump has not repudiated it, nor have the House and Senate Republicans who voted against the Electoral College results. Millions of people still think the election was stolen. They still support Trump the person, not the Republican Party, and many are prepared to take further action on his behalf.

As in the case of other coup attempts, the president’s actions have put us on the brink of civil war. Trump did not overturn the election results, but, just as he intended, he disrupted the peaceful democratic transition of executive power.




*Fiona Hill is a British-American foreign affairs specialist and academic. She is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs.

Donald Trump cannot provide exculpatory witnesses - he must provide *under oath* testimonies

Echo opinion letter published in the Florida Sun Sentinel - Donald Trump cannot exculptate himself because there are zero witnesses who will agree to lie for him when "under oath".  On the other hand, witnesses who have put their professional reputations at risk did testify under oath to provide proof of Donald Trump's obstruction of Congress and abuse of power, as charged in the Articles of Impeachment.

Where are the Trump exculpatory witnesses who are willing to provide testimony under oath? IOW, the exculpatory witnesses do not exist.  

Echo opinion letter from Florida:

Dr. Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council, while under oath, corroborated the U.S. Intelligence Community and those who testified before her. She said she refuses to legitimize the conspiracy theory she called a false narrative, fueled by Russian propaganda, that Ukraine interfered in our election in 2016, and warned of Russian efforts to “weaponize” U.S. politics. That’s really scary to me.

The Mueller report is clear on this point, so Donald Trump knows better: The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the Russian government was behind an orchestrated campaign to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election and sought to help Donald Trump win the White House. The Mueller investigation did indict 26 Russian nationals and three Russian companies.

David Holmes testified, under oath as well, that the president didn’t care about the corruption in Ukraine, he just cared about getting dirt on the Bidens. That is illegal and the America public needs to know that Donald Trump broke the law, even if he is not impeached. Maybe future presidents will think twice before they break the law.  

From Ann O’Leary, Lauderhill, Florida

Maine echo to Senator Susan Collins

By Gail Marshall- An echo opinion published in the Mount Desert Islander newspaper.

Many times Senator Susan Collins has gushed her adoration of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who, in 1950, stood in the Senate to speak her “Declaration of Conscience.”

U.S. Senator from 1967-1973/ B. 1897 D. 1995 in Maine

It was the act of one woman who found the courage to challenge Senator Joseph McCarthy’s long running, mendacious campaign of hatred that had rendered her colleagues politically paralyzed in fear and silence. It broke the logjam and eventually ended his reign of terror.

Recently, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former National Security Council member Fiona Hill showed themselves to be Sen. Smith’s true heirs. They put their years of non-partisan public service on the line and strode to the Capitol over the objections of the Trump State Department and White House. They each sat for ten hours before the House Intelligence Committee. They each outlined facts amounting to a blistering condemnation of the corruption and self-dealing of Donald Trump, his State Department and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, undertaken at the expense of national interest and security.

Senator Susan Collins was wrong to support the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court

In contrast, as years of Trump’s corruption, chronic dissembling and threatening, and destructive actions and policies continue to cheapen the office of the Presidency and endanger our nation, Senator Collins repeatedly issues anodyne statements of “disappointment” and “disagreement.” She has never taken any action or definitive step that will draw even the faintest line in the sand.

Where exactly is her line? When will enough be enough?

It wasn’t enough when:

Trump actively obstructed the investigation of the Russian interference in the last election to his advantage. We now know it was likely a prelude to what he is trying to orchestrate for 2020.

He staffed the Office of the President with his completely unqualified children, overriding security clearance assessments on their behalf.

He met alone with Vladimir Putin and seized the notes of the talks, freezing out our own national intelligence agencies.

He withdrew us from the Paris Climate accord and subsequently took a wrecking ball to clean air, water, and land protections as the nation increasingly floods or burns, freezes or broils.

He and his children enrich themselves as foreign leaders, businessmen, state officials, the Defense Department and Cabinet members fork over cash at Trump properties.

He engages in and encourages racist, hateful demagoguery that has lead directly to an explosion of right wing extremism, including threats and violence.

When was the last time Senator Colins listened to the entirety of a Trump rally with his often alarmingly incoherent, coarse incitement to violence and hatred? She should. (You should too.) And then explain to us how a “moderate” Senator can fail to take meaningful action for the good of the nation.

He willy-nilly started trade wars, costing us billions of dollars. The cost of tariffs comes directly out of our pockets, as does the cost of billions in farm subsidies to partially offset their Trump-made losses. Or at least it will eventually. Right now they are just throwing it on to their exploding deficit.

He operated intentionally and unnecessarily cruel border and immigration programs, including forcibly separating from their parents thousands of young children.

He openly trashes our painstakingly built strategic alliances the world over, favoring and empowering anti-democratic tyrants instead.

He runs much of the government with “acting” Cabinet Secretaries and others who, per the Constitution, are supposed to be confirmed by the Senate. When he does send nominees to the Senate, the Senator votes to confirm people like William Barr and Michael Pompeo, both of whom operate their respective Departments like they are personal and private subsidiaries of Trump, Inc.

How about Syria, where he’s suddenly abandoned our allies, the Kurds, offering a preposterous excuse that that they didn’t help us at Normandy? Turkey, home to one of Trump’s large hotels, promptly began slaughtering Kurdish men, women and children, and deliberately bombing all around US military positions, as ISIS fighters escaped from Kurdish captivity. Russia and Syria have moved in quickly to fill the void he created, with Russia now occupying one of our former bases. The Senator said Trump’s move is “terribly unwise” and would favor sanctions if things get out of hand. The horse is out of the barn, Senator, so do bar the door, won’t you?

Senator Collins argues that if Articles of Impeachment are referred to the Senate, she will serve as a “judge” of the charges against Trump, so she can’t express any opinions in advance. How very typical and convenient. And also not true. It’s just another tree to hide behind. She’s had plenty of power and tools at her disposal all along and she’d done nothing. Instead, like the rest of the Republican Senate, she has fully enabled a narcissistic bully to turn far too much of the nation into a cauldron of fear and loathing, hollow out our international capacity to credibly represent and protect ourselves, weaken and degrade our fundamental democratic standards and safeguards, and imperil our children’s future.

If Senator Collins were truly the “moderate” she claims to be, she would take a page from Ambassador Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill and Senator Smith. She would draw a line right now. She would risk her Senate career for the good of the nation. She would act in a bold way to help stop the increasingly radical damage done by Donald Trump to this nation before we are beyond the point of no return.

From Gail Marshall, a resident of Mount Desert, Maine

Republicans irresponsibly fall victim to the fictional narrative

“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016." 

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2019/11/29/opinion/unite-to-fight-back-vs-foreign-disinformation-campaigns/

Fiona Hill- biogrpahy

Fiona Hill took a professional integrity risk when she served Donald Trump on the National Security Council.  

This echo editorial was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and re-published in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Fiona Hill, the former top National Security Council (NSC) expert on Russia, set the reord straight on that country’s attack on the 2016 election.

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” Hill testified during the House impeachment inquiry last week.

“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.”

America is not the only nation targeted by Russia. The Kremlin’s assault on elections — democracy’s DNA — is apparent in many Western nations. This includes the United Kingdom, where Brits will have to wait until after the Dec. 12 election for a report on the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Russia will likely try again in the interest of advancing its cynical goals, which Hill starkly described as “to weaken our country — to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President (Vladimir) Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.”

Russia cannot match the U.S., let alone NATO, in military spending, so it’s using asymmetric measures to disrupt the West.

“The Russians have a really dark purpose, which is to undermine democracy,” Richard Stengel, the former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, told an editorial writer. Stengel, a former Time editor and author of “Information Wars: How We Lost The Global Battle Of Disinformation And What We Can Do About It,” added that “we’re still in an era where offensive capabilities are greater than the defensive capabilities, which is worrisome going into a really critical presidential election.”

A recent joint statement from the departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and other federal entities warned of looming 2020 interference. “Our adversaries want to undermine our democratic institutions, influence public sentiment and affect government policies. Russia, China, Iran and other foreign malicious actors all will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions,” the statement said.

“An informed public is a resilient public,” the statement added. Stengel agreed on the need for more media literacy as well as more accountability for social media companies. “Every voter in a way is a target of entities that malignly seek to influence them,” Stengel said.

That includes voices here at home, which is a factor Hill highlighted in her testimony. “President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a super PAC,” she said. “They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.”

Russia’s, not America’s, interests are advanced by the “fictional narrative” that it wasn’t the Kremlin that attacked the U.S. in 2016. On that point, a deeply divided Congress, and country, must agree.

— Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Impeachment witnesses were brave and credible - out did cowardly colleagues who will not yet submit "under oath"

"...everybody was in the loop, including the vice-president (Mike Pence), the secretary of state (Mike Pompeo) and White House acting Chief of Staff (Mick Mulvaney)..."- Fiona Hill.

The impeachment witnesses are the silver lining to this embarrassing chapter in our history

Echo opinion by Kathleen Parker published in the Bangor Daily News, a Maine newspaper.

Former White House national security aide Fiona Hill testified under oath before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington during a public impeachment hearing of Donald Trump's illegal efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents.

After fidgeting through five days of public hearings, a dozen witnesses and countless political pontificators, Americans should be gratified by the quality of the people who testified and who actually do the nation’s work abroad.

If there was a silver lining to an otherwise embarrassing chapter in our history, it was that we were able to meet and hear from those whose names aren’t well known except to their colleagues. To listen and observe was to have one’s faith restored in America’s image despite the withering damage suffered these past few years.

One after another, the men and women who testified, subjecting themselves to the sometimes-scurrilous scrutiny of political profilers, maintained their focus and their cool. It was grating to hear the screech of Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, whose raised voice surely signaled a stretch-and-restroom break for many viewers. While we’re on the subject, can’t the man put on a blazer? Jordan appeared without one, putting in mind a teenager who refuses to play by his parents’ rules.

May I remind him and others that dress codes are intended to show respect for the occasion and for others in attendance. Surely, our congressional leaders owe their constituents — and, in this case, the process — the small personal sacrifice of dressing appropriately. To do otherwise is to telegraph to the world that you think you’re more important than everyone else. Jordan also proved that age and maturity can be mutually exclusive.

There, I got that off my chest. (Parents may clip for personal use.)

Quite apart from the question of whether Trump should be impeached, viewers of the hearings were privy to history and were beneficiaries of a primer on current events. Often lost in the drama of the impeachment proceedings is the profound importance of Ukraine as a buffer to a resurgent Russian empire. 

Trump’s withholding of $400 million in military funding from Ukraine during its war with Russia — pending assurances that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would at least say he’d investigate the Biden’s involvement with the gas company Burisma — put Ukrainian lives at risk and signaled to Russia that U.S. support of Ukraine was credibly iffy.

One of the pivotal questions during the hearings was whether America’s diplomatic corps understood that “Burisma” was actually code for the “Bidens,” meaning political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was employed by Burisma. Only two witnesses claimed not to have known about the connection. One was Kurt Volker, a former envoy to Ukraine, who later said he should have caught on sooner. The other was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, whose claim was deemed “not credible” by witness Fiona Hill, the National Security Council’s former senior director for Europe and Russia, and a standout in the lineup of witnesses.

At several junctures, Hill schooled House Intelligence Committee members about the significance of Ukraine and the perils of advancing the false claim that Ukraine and not Russia had interfered with the 2016 election. “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” she said. Critical of partisan rancor, she beseeched members to “not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”

As for the inferred quid pro quo between Trump and Zelensky, Hill confirmed Sondland’s earlier testimony that “everybody was in the loop,” including the vice president, the secretary of state and the White House acting chief of staff.

While true that the administration under pressure did release the military-aid funds, without Zelensky’s public announcement of an investigation, which Trump had specifically requested, his intentions alone created problems for those serving in Ukraine. In Hill’s words: “[Sondland] was being involved in a domestic political errand. And we were being involved in national security, foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged.”

Whether Donald Trump is impeached remains to be seen. But the shame of his highly irregular behavior in seeking political favors from a foreign entity is softened somewhat by the pride one can feel in our diplomats, experts and fact witnesses to whom we are beholden for their good grace.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for The Washington Post. 

Hill’s testimony jibed with earlier testimony by acting Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor that there was a regular policy executed by the diplomatic corps and a “highly irregular” policy run by Rudy “Hand Grenade” Giuliani, whose legacy as former New York City mayor, we should note, has definitively expired.