In the middle of the presidential election campaign in the USA, the parallel to Donald Trump is doubtful. The former White House tenant on Tuesday likened his troubles with the American justice system to political persecution and compared his fate to that of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last week.
The ex-president was fined $355 million on Friday for committing financial fraud by hugely inflating the value of his real estate empire to obtain cheaper financing from banks.
Trump sees his judge as “a crazy person”
He therefore compared this sanction to the treatment reserved for Vladimir Putin's main opponent in Russia. “It’s a form of Navalny. “It is a form of communism or fascism,” he said during a public meeting in South Carolina. The judge who sentenced him was “a crackpot,” he added. “This guy decided I was guilty before the trial started. »
Rebooted by a Fox News journalist, Donald Trump didn't mention Vladimir Putin. He simply praised Alexei Navalny as a “very brave man” who “probably would have done better to stay away and speak from outside the country” rather than return to Russia voluntarily. “This is also happening in our country,” he warned. “We are becoming a communist country in many ways. » “I have eight or nine lawsuits on my account because (…) I work in politics,” he estimated.
Nikki Haley's load
These comments follow the initial controversy sparked by the Republican's silence over the death of Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison on Friday. His death sparked a wave of outrage in Western countries and US President Joe Biden ruled on Friday that Vladimir Putin was responsible. But Donald Trump did not respond immediately and was attacked by his rival for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley. “The fact that he says nothing about Navalny shows that he is either on Putin's side and thinks it's okay for him to kill his political opponents, or he just doesn't think it's okay, an important matter.” she said on Sunday.
The ex-president is now using this affair to argue that there is a conspiracy against him, without ever mentioning Vladimir Putin. On Monday, he broke his silence on his network Truth Social to advance this thesis by denouncing the “CROY judges of the radical left.” » In addition to this civil case regarding his real estate empire, which he has appealed, Donald Trump is also facing four criminal cases related to his electoral pressure after the 2020 election, his handling of confidential documents or his payments to silence a former porn star who alleged an extramarital affair to have had with him. In total he has 91 charges.