Fiona Hill: Trump comparison to Navalny ‘brazen’ and ‘shameful’

Former National Security Council adviser Fiona Hill on Sunday took aim at former President Donald Trump after he compared himself to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a dissident.

Days after Navalny was killed in what appeared to be a political assassination, President Trump called himself a “proud political dissident” in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.

Hill served as senior director of the NSC during the Trump administration, focusing on European and Russia policy. During Trump’s first impeachment hearing in 2019, she also called for ex-officio officials to withhold military aid to Ukraine for failing to investigate Joe Biden, Trump’s political opponent at the time. He gained national attention after testifying about abuse.

“What he’s doing in the most brazen and frankly shameful way is trying to suggest that the United States is like President Putin’s Russia,” she said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” In an interview with Margaret Brennan.

“Since when did we start assassinating opposition candidates in this country? Since when does a U.S. president want to eliminate his political opponents by poisoning them or imprisoning them in what basically amounts to an Arctic penal colony? She went on to say, “What President Trump is doing is degrading America.”

Trump initially did not speak about Navalny’s death, but days later compared the situation to his own criminal case. The next day, he said the civil court verdict against him was “a form of Mr. Navalny.”

Hill also criticized the former president’s reluctance to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Former President Trump has made it clear that he respects Vladimir Putin,” she said. “Despite all the evidence in the country of what President Putin’s view should be, that President Putin is an avowed enemy of the United States at this particular point in time, he really has I continue to praise him.”