Former President Donald Trump once against compared himself to Alexei Navalny Tuesday night, claiming that his business fraud ruling in New York is the same sort of treatment that the deceased Russian opposition leader faced.
“It’s a form of Navalny, it’s a form of communism or fascism,” Trump said during a town hall event moderated by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
The former president was ordered to pay $355 million in fines last week after New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron found Trump and his company, The Trump Organization, liable of fraud. Trump has said that he intends to appeal the ruling, although in order to do so, his defense team will have to post a nearly $400 million bond to the state of New York.
“The guy’s a nut job,” Trump added, referring to Engoron.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump on Tuesday speaks during a Fox News town hall at the Greenville Convention Center in Greenville, South Carolina. Trump said during the town hall that the ruling…
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The ContextNavalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died at age 47 last week while serving a 19-year prison sentence for fraud and contempt of court. Many have blamed Putin’s administration for Navalny’s death, including President Joe Biden, who said that he had “no doubt” that the Kremlin was responsible.
Trump spoke out about Navalny over Truth Social on Monday and compared himself to the Russian prisoner, saying that his death “has made me more and more aware” of “crooked, radical left politicians, prosecutors, and judges leading us down a path to destruction.”
What We KnowIngraham gave Trump a chance to “expand” on his statement regarding Navalny during the town hall Tuesday, noting that some of the former president’s “opponents” used his comments to claim that Trump was “pro-Putin” and doesn’t “care about human rights or freedom.”
“Navalny was a very sad situation,” Trump told Ingraham. “And he’s very brave, he was a very brave guy … But it’s happening in our country, too. We are turning into a communist country in many ways.”
“I got indicted four times, I have eight or nine trials, all because of the fact that I’m in politics,” he continued. “They indicted me on things that are so ridiculous.”
Trump did not mention Putin in his answer or issue blame for Navalny’s death.
On top of Engoron ruling against him last week, the former president is facing four criminal indictments while running for a second term in office. He was also found liable in the sexual assault and defamation of former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who was awarded $83.3 million last month after wining a lawsuit against Trump.
Newsweek reached out to Engoron’s office for comment via email on Tuesday.
The ViewsFormer New York Republican Representative Lee Zeldin also compared Navalny’s death to Trump in a post to X, formerly Twitter, last week, writing that it was “worth remembering that Democrats are actively doing Biden’s bidding as they also try to imprison his chief political opponent, Donald Trump, remove him from the ballot, and ensure he dies in prison.”
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, however, used Navalny’s death to attack Trump’s past statements about Putin.
“Putin did this,” Haley wrote on social media Friday. “The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends. The same Trump who said: ‘In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that.'”
What’s Next?Trump’s team is set to appeal Engoron’s ruling against him as soon as the judge’s clerks finalize the order’s paperwork, and the former president’s leading lawyer in the case, Alina Habba, has said that the defense is “prepared” to pay the bond required to challenge the order.
The appeal bond equals Trump’s $355 million verdict plus 9 percent post-judgment interest, which would be collected by the state of New York if the former president loses the appeal.
Update 02/20/24, 8:46 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information and background.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Source : Newsweek