Trump likens Alexei Navalny death to legal struggles in bizarre Truth Social rant
Former President Donald Trump broke his protracted silence Monday on the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny — comparing Navalny’s demise in an Arctic prison to the legal woes that threaten Trump’s freedom and fortune.
“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction,” Trump, 77, posted on Truth Social.
“Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024.”
The death of Navalny, 47, was announced by Russian authorities Friday — four weeks before the country’s presidential election, which observers expect to be rigged in favor of incumbent tyrant Vladimir Putin.
Trump, who did not mention Putin in his post, had drawn heat for not denouncing Nalvany’s death sooner, including from rival Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
“It’s amazing to me how weak in the knees he is when it comes to Putin,” Haley, 52, told “Fox & Friends” shortly before Trump’s post, “because you look at the fact, he is yet to say anything about Navalny’s death — which, Putin murdered him.”
Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations for 23 months, also zinged her former boss over comments about NATO earlier this month in which the former president publicly questioned whether he would defend a member that does not fulfill its financial obligations to the alliance.
“We’re seeing all of these things happen, and Trump’s doing late-night rants about his court cases? He’s going to be in court for the rest of the year. We can’t be distracted,” Haley added.
Trump is facing 91 criminal counts spanning four indictments, the first of which — a 34-count indictment for alleged falsification of business records to conceal hush-money payments — is set to head to trial in Manhattan on March 25.
The former president has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all the charges pending against him. On Friday, he was slapped with a $350 million civil fine for alleged business fraud, a price tag which could be bumped up to around $450 million with interest.
After Trump broke his silence on Navalny Monday, Haley quickly admonished him for likening barbarism in Russia to the US.
“Donald Trump could have condemned Vladimir Putin for being a murderous thug. Trump could have praised Navalny’s courage. Instead, he stole a page from liberals’ playbook, denouncing America and comparing our country to Russia,” she chided on X.
Most Western officials, including President Biden, have accused Putin of being “responsible” for the death of Navalny, with the president warning in 2021 that the Russian leader would face “devastating consequences” if Navalny died in custody.
Russian authorities informed both Navalny’s mother and lawyer that the cause was “sudden death syndrome,” according to Ivan Zhdanov, who runs the dissident’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
On Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said in a statement that her late husband was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok, a favorite assassination tool of the Putin regime.
There is a lengthy history of the Russian president’s adversaries perishing under suspicious circumstances, such as falling out of windows.
In August, Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash. Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef,” orchestrated an unsuccessful uprising the previous June.
Navalny is believed to have been poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent, according to the German government. Ultimately he survived and returned to Russia in January 2021.
Just two days after setting foot in Russia, Navalny was detained by authorities. He was sentenced to decades in prison on charges of alleged embezzlement, extremism and more.
Western officials roundly denounced his sentencing.
Trump is the runaway favorite to win the Republican nomination over Haley, the former South Carolina governor.
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