Several books and a parliamentary committee seek to shed light on the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, between threat of coup and civil war
The House of Representatives committee investigating the events on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 is tightening its grip on former President Donald Trump and those close to him.
Over the past week, a Washington appeals court ruled that Donald Trump could not invoke presidential privileges to block transmission to this White House internal communications committee. His ex-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, like other former collaborators are threatened with criminal prosecution for refusing to cooperate with this commission.
Parliamentarians have already interviewed 300 witnesses. At the center of their investigation, Donald Trump’s maneuvers to reverse the outcome of the November 2020 election and the possibility that they may have amounted to a coup attempt.
Here is what we know of these crucial weeks.
Trump convinced he can stay in the White House
The rejection of the results of the vote on November 3 giving the victory to Joe Biden was not just a sore loser flirtatiousness, but an essential component of a considered strategy to retain power. This quickly focused on the certification ceremony of the election results by Vice President Mike Pence before Congress, in principle a mere formality.
From mid-December, lawyer John Eastman was developing for Donald Trump a precise plan to exploit the loopholes in the electoral counting law and to block Joe Biden’s accession to the White House.
Under pressure, Mike Pence had consulted Dan Quayle, the former vice-president of George Bush Sr., who assured him that he had no legal leeway and had to certify the victory of Joe Biden. “You can not imagine what situation I am in,” said Mike Pence then, according to the book “Peril” by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
In a Washington palace, on January 5 and 6, a “war room” was set up, a strategic unit of advisers, including the far-right theorist Steve Bannon. Their contacts with the White House have been frequent.
At the CIA, at the Pentagon, the fear of a coup
Donald Trump’s refusal to admit defeat has raised fears that he will use the military to stay in power. The idea that he could launch a war for the same purpose also gave military and intelligence officials a cold sweat.
The book “Peril” relates a conversation between the head of the CIA Gina Haspel and the chief of staff Mark Milley a few days after the election of November 3. “We are heading straight for a coup d’état instigated by the right. It’s pure madness, ”the spy boss would have said.
Risks of war
Like “Peril”, the book “Betrayal” by the journalist of the ABC channel Jonathan Karl, evokes plans of Donald Trump to strike in Iran in the last weeks of his mandate and the difficulty of his advisers and ministers to dissuade him, including a brand new Secretary of Defense, Chris Miller.
China was also worried about the unpredictability of the US president in these uncertain weeks. So much so that General Milley decided at the end of October to call his Chinese counterpart to reassure him and prevent Chinese concerns from giving rise to a military gear. “I want to assure you that the US government is stable,” he told General Li Zuocheng. “We are not going to attack you or carry out military operations against you.”
Déstituer Trump
After the shock of the Jan.6 attack on Capitol Hill, several Republican officials, including members of the government, explored constitutional avenues to oust Donald Trump.
In vain. Mike Pence had finally certified the victory of Joe Biden on the night of January 6 to 7 once the attackers were evacuated from the Capitol and calm returned to the federal capital. But he refused to consider the institutional mechanisms that would have made it possible to oust the president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then called Mark Milley to ask him to prevent an “unstable president” from pressing the nuclear button. Conversation that she had immediately made public. “The nuclear buttons are secure,” replied the general, according to “Peril”. “I can assure you that will not happen.”
Then General Milley had summoned the highest American officers. Looking them in the eye, he had asked them that any order from Donald Trump be submitted to him beforehand.
–
