House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that what Trump and Mike Flynn are doing is plotting a military coup.
Video of Chairman Schiff:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff said that he has been reluctant to use the word until now, but Trump and Flynn are plotting a military coup. pic.twitter.com/EZtFKc7feL
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) December 20, 2020
Schiff said on MSNBC:
Well, first of all, I have to say, I shutter every time I see Michael Flynn to think that that man was the head of the defense intelligence agency. What he’s just saying is perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary, done 60-some odd times in history is a military coup. That’s what he’s talking about. I’ve resisted using the word “Coup” but he’s talking about a military coup. That may have done 60 times in history, but it’s been done by dictators around the world, not in the United States.
Could the president do it? I don’t think the people around the president are going to go along with it. It would fail. But it would be such a — an additional destructive blow to our democracy, the fact that they’re entertaining this is so beyond the pale. But, again, this is a man who has no moral compass. He will do the length and breadth of what people let him get away with. Sadly, he’s had all too many enablers in his own administration and the Republicans in Congress and that’s what even breeds this kind of reckless talk.
The reporting on the Friday meeting suggests that outside of the crackpots that Trump has surrounded himself with like Giuliani, Flynn, and Powell, his own White House advisers are opposed to the idea, and they have told Trump that he does not have the constitutional authority to do what Flynn is suggesting.
It is troubling that so many Republicans are willing to get in line behind the destruction of democracy. Even if the coup would not be successful, the fact that a president is engaging in such seditious behavior damages the nation’s democratic institutions.
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Mr. Easley is the founder/managing editor, who is White House Press Pool, and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
