Donald Trump on Tuesday likened his problems with American justice to political persecution and compared his fate to that of Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny, who died in prison last week.
• Read also: Trump “violated the constitution,” says Republican who wants to make him ineligible
• Read also: Political strategy: Does Donald Trump prefer going to trial to campaigning?
• Read also: Trump breaks silence on Navalny’s “sudden” death and criticizes… the Biden administration
The ex-president was fined $355 million on Friday for committing financial fraud by colossally inflating the value of his real estate empire in order to obtain more favorable financing from banks.
A sanction that he compared to the treatment reserved for Vladimir Putin’s main opponent in Russia.
“It’s a form of Navalny. “It’s a form of communism or fascism,” he said during a public meeting in South Carolina.
The judge who sentenced him is “a crazy person,” he added. “This guy decided I was guilty before the trial started.”
Relaunched by a Fox News journalist, Mr. Trump did not mention Mr. Putin. He simply hailed Mr. Navalny as a “very courageous man,” who “probably would have been better off staying away and speaking from outside the country,” instead of voluntarily returning to Russia.
“This is also happening in our country,” he warned. “We are becoming a communist country in many ways.”
“I have eight or nine trials under my belt because (…) I am in politics,” he said.
These comments come after the initial controversy caused by the Republican’s silence in the face of the death of Mr. Navalny, who died on Friday in a Russian prison.
His death caused a wave of indignation in Western countries and American President Joe Biden judged on Friday that Mr. Putin was responsible.
But Donald Trump did not immediately react and was attacked by his rival for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley.
“The fact that he doesn’t say anything about Navalny (shows) that either he sides with Putin 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 Truth Social network to push this thesis by denouncing the “CROY judges of the radical left.”
In addition to this civil case concerning his real estate empire, which he appealed, Donald Trump is also charged in four criminal cases concerning his electoral pressure after the 2020 election, his management of confidential documents, or his payments to silence a former porn star who claims to have had an extramarital affair with him.
In total, he has 91 charges.
