Trump furiously rants that top general should be ‘impeached’ if he was planning to stop an attempted coup

Responding to new books alleging that his former top generals discussed a plan to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out any dangerous or illegal orders, former President Donald Trump sent out a mass email to his supporters denying the reports, saying that despite "the fact that the 2020 Presidential Election was Rigged and Stolen," he never once considered using the military to enact a "coup."

"The writing within these third-rate books are Fake News, and 'General' Milley (who Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried," Trump said.

"Never once did I have a discussion with [Milley] about bringing in the military or a 'coup,' which makes sense, because I lost total confidence and the way he handled himself on our little walk to the church."

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley saw Trump's refusal to accept defeat to Joe Biden in the November election as a possible sign that he intended to retain power by any means, according to excerpts from the book by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker that were reported by the Post and CNN Thursday.

"This is a Reichstag moment... The gospel of the Fuhrer," Milley told Pentagon aides, the authors report.

In 1933 Hitler took advantage of a suspicious fire at the Reichstag, the German parliament, to suspend civil liberties and concentrate authority in his government, setting the stage for the Nazi consolidation of power.

When Trump called for a march on Washington by supporters in November, Milley, who had been appointed by Trump, expressed worries that he was deploying "brownshirts in the streets," the book says, referring to Hitler's violent followers.

And as Trump persisted in claiming, with no evidence, that he was cheated from a second term by fraud and planned another rally on January 6 -- when his followers attacked the Congress -- Milley schemed with other top officials to resign, one by one, to signal that they would not go along with any coup by the outgoing president.

"They may try, but they're not going to f**king succeed," Milley told his aides, the book recounts.

"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," he said.

Read Trump's full statement below:

With additional reporting via AFP