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... a French police official responsible for public security in a key section of central Paris, and two intelligence officials from NATO countries who directly work in counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations... said the circumstantial evidence available pointed to what would be openly called a coup attempt in any other nation.
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One NATO source set the stage, using terms more commonly used to describe unrest in developing countries.
“The defeated president gives a speech to a group of supporters where he tells them he was robbed of the election, denounces his own administration’s members and party as traitors, and tells his supporters to storm the building where the voting is being held,” the NATO intelligence official said.
“The supporters, many dressed in military attire and waving revolutionary-style flags, then storm the building where the federal law-enforcement agencies controlled by the current president do not establish a security cordon, and the protesters quickly overwhelm the last line of police.
“The president then makes a public statement to the supporters attacking the Capitol that he loves them but doesn’t really tell them to stop,” the official said. “Today I am briefing my government that we believe with a reasonable level of certainty that Donald Trump attempted a coup that failed when the system did not buckle.
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The French police official said they believed that an investigation would find that someone interfered with the deployment of additional federal law-enforcement officials on the perimeter of the Capitol complex; the official has direct knowledge of the proper procedures for security of the facility.
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It is routine for the Capitol Police to coordinate with the federal Secret Service and the Park Police and local police in Washington, DC, before large demonstrations. The National Guard, commanded by the Department of Defence, is often on standby too.On Wednesday, however, that coordination was late or absent.
“You cannot tell me I don’t know what they should have done. I can fly to Washington tomorrow and do that job, just as any police official in Washington can fly to Paris and do mine,” the official said. The official directs public security in a central Paris police district filled with government buildings and tourist sites.
“These are not subtle principles” for managing demonstrations, “and they transfer to every situation,” the official said. “This is why we train alongside the US federal law enforcement to handle these very matters, and it’s obvious that large parts of any successful plan were just ignored.”
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The third official, who works in counterintelligence for a NATO member, agreed that the situation could only be seen as a coup attempt, no matter how poorly considered and likely to fail, and said its implications might be too huge to immediately fathom.
“Thank God it didn’t work, because I can’t imagine how hard it would be to sanction the US financial system,” the official said. By sanctions, he means the imposition of the diplomatic, military, and trade blockages that democratic nations usually reserve for dictatorships.
“The broader damage around the world will be extensive in terms of reputation, and that’s why Putin doesn’t mind at all that Trump lost. He’s got to be happy to take his chips and count his winnings, which from the Trump era will be a shockingly quick decline in American prestige and moral high ground.
“Every moment the Americans spend on their own self-inflicted chaos helps China, it helps Putin, and, to a lesser extent, it helps the mini-dictators like [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, who breathe cynicism about politics, human rights, and democracy as their air,” the official said. “They won’t miss Trump; they will be glad to see his drama leave so they can enjoy the poisoned political climate.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @12:23AM (2 children)
No, that was just fear as he realizes his only supporters are crazy nutjobs who were willing to murder his VP and the realization that he will have to face consequences for inciting his own little insurrection. He has to play the good little choir boy or prepare to let the priests of vengeance in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @04:18AM (1 child)
And the leftist liberals just won't let up.
He holds a rally, and afterward, some nutjobs break into the capitol, and the leftist liberals accuse him of inciting a riot and/or coup.
He posts a video doing just what the leftist liberals have been asking him to do for the last week, and the idiot leftist liberals twist it all up so that even doing the right thing, the very thing they've been wanting, is also now wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @08:41AM
Most likely he had in mind to hold a rally and demonstration to steal the spotlight and headlines from Biden and the electoral count to prove how brightly his brand could shine, but miscalculated very badly in trying to spur his minions onward in their march.
As a consequence, the spotlight and headlines were about hooligans committing sedition at his urging and brave members of congress returning to count electoral votes in spite of the attack on them that he did in fact launch.
His brand is now forever tarnished, and every honest business will distance itself from it as far and as fast as it can. His change of tone was a desperate attempt to regain control of the narrative, in hopes of avoiding (yet again) the consequences of his actions. He has now lost all hope of an honorable exit from the white house, and will be remembered throughout history as the first president to launch a violent attack on the congress.
But defend him if you want to. Lots of people thought Nixon wasn't so bad, but he never played much role in world affairs after leaving the white house.