Former President Donald Trump on Monday likened the sudden death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a prison colony to the legal jeopardy he faces in the United States. Raise the topic in some right-wing circles link two In his first comments on Navalny's death, he said:
“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me increasingly aware of what is happening in this country,” Trump said on his platform Truth Social. “This is slow and steady progress, with crooked radical left politicians, prosecutors, and judges leading us down a path to destruction. Impartial court decisions are destroying America. We are a declining nation, a declining nation! MAGA2024.”
Nikki Haley, Trump's former ambassador to the United Nations and the only major candidate running against him in the Republican presidential primary, criticized Trump's response to Navalny's death. Haley repeatedly criticized President Trump over the weekend. No mention of Navalny's deathIt was reported on Friday, and For recent comments, President Trump said he once told NATO allies that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever they want” if the allies did not increase their defense spending. .
“Donald Trump could have denounced it.” [Russian President] President Vladimir Putin was a violent thug,” Haley said. tweeted. “Mr. Trump could have praised Mr. Navalny's courage. Instead, he stole a page from the liberal playbook, blaming America and comparing our country to Russia.
Navalny's death, announced by Russian prisons, came after he survived several poisoning attempts, including one in 2020 when he was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent while on a business trip to Russia. Navalny, who has long campaigned to expose corruption in Putin's government, blamed the Russian president for his attempted poisoning.
The Russian opposition leader, who spent the last years of his life in prison, was 47 years old. His death drew widespread condemnation from international leaders, including President Joe Biden, who said he was “not surprised or outraged.”
President Trump called Navalny's poisoning “tragic” and “terrible” and said it “should never have happened.”
“We don't have any evidence yet, but we will look into it,” he said at a press conference on September 4, 2020.
Asked two weeks later who was to blame, President Trump said, “We'll talk about that another time.”
President Trump's post resonated with right-wing allies who in recent days have been alleging the former president's ties to Russian dissidents.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “Mr. Navalny's death in prison is a cruel reminder that imprisoning political opponents is inhumane and violates every principle of a free society.'' Posted in X, formerly known as Twitter. “Watch as the Biden administration speaks out against the imprisonment of President Putin and his chief political opponent as Democrats in four different jurisdictions seek to turn President Trump into the American Navalny.”
“Navalny = Trump” Posted Right-wing activist Dinesh D'Souza. “The plan of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party is to ensure that a powerful political opponent dies in prison. There is no practical difference between his two cases.”
Last year, the US State Department claimed that Navalny's recent “extremism” charges were “baseless”, but the United Nations Said The resulting 19-year sentence “raises further concerns about judicial harassment and political instrumentalization of the courts, and comes amid an increasing crackdown on freedom of expression and political opposition.”
