Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday compared the $355 million verdict against him in a Manhattan civil fraud trial to Russia’s treatment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian penal colony last week. .
“This is a type of Mr. Navalny. It’s a form of communism or fascism,” the 77-year-old Trump said at a town hall event in Greenville, South Carolina, in response to the huge sum imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron last Friday. asked Fox News host Laura Ingraham about the punishment. Until he is paid off, he will be paid more than $87,000 per day in interest.
“This guy has a hell of a job,” the former president said of the 74-year-old taxi driver-turned-judge. “I’ve known this for a long time and have said this openly.”
“This man decided I was guilty before the trial even started,” Trump said of Engoron, later suggesting that the judge’s nine-figure fine was due to his guilt. This was revealed in a deposition last year. He reportedly had “well over” $400 million in cash.
“I think he looked at my cash and said, ‘Okay, I’m going to take all my cash,'” Trump claimed.
The 2024 Republican presidential front-runner went on to claim that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him, Trump Organization executives, and his family is “all emanating from the White House.”
President Trump was furious, saying, “This is all election interference.” “They are trying to damage me in order to win the election again.”
James, who like Engoron is a Democrat, filed a lawsuit against Trump in 2022, accusing Trump and his real estate company of fraudulently inflating property values to obtain favorable loans and tax breaks. A civil fraud lawsuit was filed.
Before launching a blistering attack on the verdict in the civil fraud trial, Trump called Navalny “very brave” and at the same time said the Russian dissident was arrested in January 2021 and was detained until his death in his homeland. suggested that he should have left.
Mr Navalny’s widow, as well as many members of Congress, believe that Mr Navalny, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was murdered.
“He was a very brave man when he came back,” Trump said. “He could have stayed away. And frankly, people thought that could happen, and it did happen, so instead of having to go back into the country, he went away and came from outside the country.” It would probably have been much better to talk. And that’s scary.”
Navalny, a married father of two, died from nerve agent poisoning in Siberia in 2020.
President Trump has said that politically motivated repression “is happening in our country,” and that the four criminal charges and multiple civil lawsuits filed since he took office are “all because of the fact that I’m a politician.” ” he claimed. ”
“We are becoming a communist country in many ways,” he declared.
