Former Trump National Security Official: ‘The President’s Actions Have Put Us on the Brink of Civil War’

President 👤Donald Trump is facing growing calls for his removal from office following violence at the U.S. Capitol. And some former Trump administration officials are calling out his behavior in the wake of his election defeat and the storming of the Capitol.

In an op-ed published by Politico on Monday afternoon, Fiona Hill, who served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, accused Trump of carrying out a “slow-motion” coup attempt by trying to overturn the results of the election.

Hill also charged that the president’s actions have brought the country to “the brink of civil war.”

She noted that a coup is usually a “sudden, violent seizure of power involving clandestine plots and military takeovers.” However, she argued that while Trump’s efforts to overturn the election played out over several weeks, “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,” she wrote, adding, “Technically, what Trump attempted is what’s known as a ‘self-coup’ and Trump isn’t the first leader to try it.”

“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 amount to an attempt at a self-coup. This was not a one-off or brief episode.”