In my December 2017 column for the Providence Journal, I asked, not altogether rhetorically: “Is Trump the target of a coup attempt?” To the consternation of many of my friends and colleagues, I answered in the affirmative. I argued that if military officers had done to President Obama some of the things that members of the intelligence community (IC) had done to President Trump, they would have been denounced as conspirators seeking to undermine the actions of a duly elected president, and thus enemies of civilian control of the military and the Constitution itself. Commentators would have called their actions what they were: an attempted coup against a duly elected president.
But there was little condemnation of the IC conspirators. Indeed, they were treated as brave, stalwart patriots putting country above politics in an effort to save the nation from the dangerous actions of an irresponsible president. They were true defenders of the national interest whose actions deserved praise.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/remember-the-failed-coup-attempt-against-trump/
