Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption, anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny was being held at a remote Russian prison when he died in February at the age of 47.
President Joe Biden responded to Navalny’s death by blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden said: “Putin had him poisoned. He had him arrested. He had him prosecuted for fabricated crimes. He sentenced him to prison. He was held in isolation.” Biden added: “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible.”
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump did not comment on whether or not he believed Putin was responsible for Navalny’s death. At the time, Trump’s fellow GOP nominee Nikki Haley said of Trump on Fox & Friends: “It’s amazing to me how weak in the knees he is when it comes to Putin, because you look at the fact he has yet to say anything about Navalny’s death.”
Trump didn’t condemn Putin for Navalny’s death, but he did use Navalny’s situation to make a case for his own political martyrdom, comparing his own situation — being accused of multiple crimes, though not imprisoned — to that of the Russian political prisoner.
Trump told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham in February that “Navalny is a very sad situation and he’s very brave, he was a very brave guy,” adding that “it’s a horrible thing, but it’s happening in our country, too.”
This week on Fox News, conservative political commentator Tudor Dixon echoed Trump’s assertion that his and Navalny’s situations were similar. Dixon, the GOP nominee in the 2022 Michigan gubernatorial race against Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, voiced outrage over Trump’s guilty verdict in New York and claimed that Democrats “created a crime and matched” Trump to the crime.
Dixon said without interruption: “I mean, this is one step away from Alexei Navalny.” She then claimed that Biden is “taking his opposition and jailing him.”
Dixon: You have the President going ‘he’s a convicted felon.’ This is one step away from Alexei Navalny… If the American people do not see what’s going on, we will have Republicans jailed across the country pic.twitter.com/Tui6eXoXMR
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 5, 2024
[Note: Trump’s criminal trial in New York was a state case, not a federal case. Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice have control over the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which charged Trump with the 34 felony counts on which a jury of Americans found him guilty. Trump was represented by a team of high-priced lawyers and received due process, one clear difference between his situation and that of Navalny.]
Also, Trump is not in prison. His sentence will be announced by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11.
Dixon stoked more fear, echoing another Trump claim: “If the American people do not see what’s going on, we will have Republicans jailed across this country.”