John Bolton admits to helping 'plan' overseas coups

Former US national security advisor John Bolton has made a candid admission saying he "helped plan coup d'etat" outside his country.

Bolton made the bombshell remarks during a TV debate on Tuesday, in which he spoke about ex-president Donald Trump's ability to plot coups in foreign countries. 

Bolton, who has served multiple high-ranking positions in Republican governments, said that he was part of conspiracies aimed at overthrowing governments "not here [in the US] but other places" while speaking with broadcaster CNN's Jake Tapper about Trump's alleged role in inciting a mob of followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

"As somebody who has helped plan coup d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work," Bolton, a former Trump aide, told Tapper. 

Asked about "successful coups", Bolton said, "I'm not going to get into the specifics." But he mentioned he wrote about Venezuela [coup bid] in his book, which turned out to be "not successful."

Bolton, in his term, was accused of supporting opposition militias in Venezuela to kill the current President Nicolas Maduro and install a transitional government.

Bolton, who served as Trump's NSA from 2018 to 2019, told Tapper that "nothing Donald Trump did after the election in connection with the lie about election fraud — none of it is defensible," while portraying Trump as too incompetent to execute a coup.

"You have to understand the nature of what the problem of Donald Trump is. He's — to use a Star Wars metaphor — a disturbance in the Force," he said.

READ MORE: Who is John Bolton?

'Hawk' and warmonger

During Trump's rule, Bolton was one of the main decision-makers in the administration that shaped the government's international relations.

Trump, however, sacked Bolton, calling him a "hawk" and added that “if it was up to him, he'd take on the whole world at one time."

Bolton staunchly supported the decision to overthrow Iraq's long-running leader Saddam Hussein. He still believes it was the right step to take against Hussein.

Trump has argued that "we should have never been in Iraq" and that the decision to invade ultimately "destabilised" the Middle East.

Bolton was also known for his warmongering policies against Iran and for his eye-catching op-ed article in The New York Times that supported bombing Iran.

He is also known for alienating diplomats at the United Nations while he was representing the US for the George W Bush administration in the global body.

Bolton called the international body a "twilight zone" during his 17 months on the job.

He once suggested the UN could easily lose the top 10 floors of the 39-storey building without it having any impact.

READ MORE: Bolton’s departure doesn't make US foreign policy any easier to decipher