Pelosi told the general that she was deeply concerned that a "crazy," "dangerous" and "maniac" Trump might try and use nuclear weapons in his last days in office, the book said.
" 'Ma'am, I guarantee you these processes are very good,' Milley reassured her," said the authors. "There's not going to be an accidental firing of nuclear weapons."
And about the possibility of a coup? Milley spoke to friends, lawmakers and colleagues about the threat of a coup, and the Joint Chiefs chairman felt he had to be "on guard" for what might come.
"They may try, but they're not going to f**king succeed," Milley told his deputies, according to the authors. "You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."
If January 6, 2021 was an attempted coup that failed, we see that Russia has been pretty silent about it. After all, US-Russian relations are bad enough over Syria and other issues. And cyber-warfare from a variety of Russian actors, against both our government and against uncounted private entities, has continued.
Now that the new President has been elected, what facets of the 2016 Kremlin plan of destabilization are still in place? Biden is neither insane nor a would-be dictator.
Surely Biden is not influenced by Trump policies regarding sanctions; he levies his own. And the leak of this Kremlin plot, if genuine, surely will not influence Biden, or any other US or allied foreign policy decision-makers, to soften any sanctions.
So did Putin's plan of destabilization actually succeed, even though Trump is gone from office? I don't know that a true evaluation of the relative success of Russian destabilizing of American politics and society during the Trump Administration can be made before these new documents exposed by The Guardian are digested.
One thing is sure: anybody who trusted Russia in any way must now have second thoughts.
(Article changed on Jul 15, 2021 at 3:33 PM EDT)
(Article changed on Jul 15, 2021 at 3:34 PM EDT)
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