Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says the U.S. Capitol assault was staged and he knows who did it

By Duncan Smith

Well, he oughta know, right…?

We didn’t see this one coming but now that it has, we have to admit…it makes sense.

Former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev told a Russian media outlet the assault on the U.S. Capitol Building last week was not only planned, but it looks like something very familar.

And he thinks he knows who did it.

Just the News reports:

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that he knows who planned the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and that the incident bodes ill for America’s future.

“The storming of the Capitol was clearly designed in advance, and it is clear by whom,” Gorbachev last week told an interviewer for Russian media. And, while he didn’t identify the plotters, the renowned statesman said that he senses machinations at work.

“It will take a little time, and we will figure it out, why it was really done,” Gorbachev said.

A pivotal international figure during the latter years of the Cold War, Gorbachev in 1991 was briefly held captive during a failed attempt to overthrow him in the Soviet Union. The Soviet communist coup conspirators favored a hard line over Gorbachev’s liberalized approach to running the country. Although Gorbachev faced down the plotters, the incident is widely viewed as having ushered in the demise of the Soviet Union.  

The Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was quickly put down, and was not accompanied by the usual trappings of a coup d’etat, such as tanks in the streets. Nevertheless, Gorbachev indicated that the episode would reverberate through the United States. The incident “called into question the future fate of the United States as a state,” he said.

That is powerful stuff from a man who ran a country that rivaled the U.S. in terms of power and the capability to influence foreign political outcomes.