The U.S. president is calling for the end of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.
In a rambling, 349-word Truth Social post Wednesday night, Donald Trump claimed that the Israeli leader shouldn’t have to face the music for alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, since “there is nobody in Israel’s History that fought harder or more competently” than Netanyahu. Instead, he wrote, the trial should be “CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY.”
“I was shocked to hear that the State of Israel, which has just had one of its Greatest Moments in History, and is strongly led by Bibi Netanyahu, is continuing its ridiculous Witch Hunt against their Great War Time Prime Minister!” Trump wrote, referring to Netanyahu as a “warrior.” “Bibi and I just went through HELL together, fighting a very tough and brilliant longtime enemy of Israel, Iran, and Bibi could not have been better, sharper, or stronger in his LOVE for the incredible Holy Land.”
Trump used the space to accuse Iran of being on the brink of nuclear armament, claiming that Netanyahu had conducted “a complete elimination of potentially one of the biggest and most powerful Nuclear Weapons anywhere in the World, and it was going to happen, SOON!”
“Despite all of this, I just learned that Bibi has been summoned to Court on Monday for the continuation of this long running, (He has been going through this ‘Horror Show’ since May of 2020—Unheard of! This is the first time a sitting Israeli Prime Minister has ever been on trial.), politically motivated case, ‘concerning cigars, a Bugs Bunny doll, and numerous other unfair charges’ in order to do him great harm,” Trump continued. “Such a WITCH HUNT, for a man who has given so much, is unthinkable to me.”
Netanyahu appeared to appreciate the sentiment, thanking Trump in a separate post “for your moving support for me and your tremendous support for Israel.” But other Israeli politicians didn’t take kindly to the intervention: Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that Trump should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.
Trump’s casual disregard for the rule of law should come as no surprise considering his own history facing the court system. Trump has been sued countless times, but has grabbed the national spotlight over the last few years when he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, when he was convicted as a felon for falsifying records to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, when he was ordered to pay out hundreds of millions for defrauding U.S. banks, and when he was charged in connection to two separate conspiracies to unroot the result of the 2020 presidential election.
Those all dramatically came to a close when Trump was inaugurated on January 20, in light of a law preventing sitting presidents from being charged with a crime.