“They tried to overthrow a duly elected -- forget about me -- a duly elected president of the United States. They tried to do an overthrow with fiction by making up stories about Russia. Now it's all come out that actually they wanted Hillary Clinton, you saw that one came out yesterday. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win.”
— Interview, 05/14/2020
Trump has drawn attention to a tweet by Mark Zaid, attorney for the whistleblower, on Jan. 30, 2017 which said “#coup has started” and that “#impeachment will follow ultimately.” He tweeted it over a tweet about the firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Trump suggests that Zaid was threatening a coup. But Zaid said that was not the case: “I was referring to a completely lawful process of what President Trump would likely face as a result of stepping over the line, and that particularly whatever would happen would come about as a result of lawyers. The coup comment referred to those working inside the Administration who were already, just a week into office, standing up to him to enforce recognized rules of law.“