Donald Trump, the former U.S. president who faced backlash for his commendation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, issued his inaugural public statement regarding the passing of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny on Monday. The statement, shared on social media, refrained from attributing any fault, but subtly referenced his personal legal challenges.
“The unexpected passing of Alexei Navalny has heightened my consciousness of the events unfolding in our nation,” wrote the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination on his Truth Social platform. The statement seemed to draw a parallel between Navalny’s demise and his own political predicaments.
Donald Trump has broken his silence on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – but avoided casting blame on President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in Mr Navalny's death.
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“We are witnessing a gradual advancement, with dishonest, extreme left politicians, prosecutors, and judges steering us towards ruin. Uncontrolled borders, manipulated elections, and egregiously unjust courtroom verdicts are tearing America apart. We are a nation on the decline, a nation failing! Let’s Make America Great Again in 2024.”
The parallels Mr. Trump was attempting to establish with Russia’s leading dissident were not evident. Navalny, at the age of 47, had waged a long battle against what he termed as widespread corruption in Putin’s Russia, governed by “scoundrels and robbers.”
A request for clarification was not promptly addressed by the Trump campaign.
On Friday, a judge ordered Mr. Trump to pay $355 million in penalties for inflating his net worth to deceive lenders, a ruling he vehemently criticized as being influenced by politics. In addition to contesting this decision, Mr. Trump is also gearing up for four impending criminal trials while seeking the Republican nomination.
President Joe Biden on Friday directly blamed Mr. Putin for Navalny’s death in a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, as did Mr. Trump’s main Republican rival, Nikki Haley. “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Mr. Biden said.
The Kremlin has refuted any connection to his demise and deemed the Western allegations of Mr. Putin’s culpability as intolerable.
In the wake of the news about Navalny’s passing on Friday, previous U.S. presidents and leading Congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle voiced their criticism of Mr. Putin.
However, Mr. Trump, the front-running Republican contender set to oppose Mr. Biden in the November election, maintained his silence until Monday.
Throughout his term in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Mr. Trump showed a sense of respect for Mr. Putin. In 2018, he declined to hold the Russian leader accountable for interference in the 2016 U.S. election, thereby questioning the conclusions of his own intelligence departments and igniting domestic disapproval.
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