Republican Lee Zeldin Mourns Navalny by… Comparing Him to Donald Trump
LEFT: Alexei Navalny (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File) RIGHT: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Lee Zeldin, the former Republican congressman and New York gubernatorial candidate, mourned the death of 47-year-old Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison on Friday by quickly comparing him to former President Donald Trump.
“As the world reflects on the murder of Alexei Navalny at the hands of Putin, it’s worth remembering that Democrats are actively doing Biden’s bidding as they also try to imprison his chief political opponent, Donald Trump, remove him from the ballot, and ensure he dies in prison,” declared Zeldin on Twitter shortly after the news of Navalny’s death broke.
As the world reflects on the murder of Alexei Navalny at the hands of Putin, it’s worth remembering that Democrats are actively doing Biden’s bidding as they also try to imprison his chief political opponent, Donald Trump, remove him from the ballot, and ensure he dies in prison. https://t.co/lLd13ATUdT
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) February 16, 2024
Right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza concurred, insisting that “Navalny=Trump.”
“The plan of the Biden regime and the Democrats is to ensure their leading political opponent dies in prison. There’s no real difference between the two cases,” he argued.
Navalny was an anti-corruption crusader in dictator Vladimir Putin’s Russia who investigated and published reports about Putin’s corruption and authoritarianism. He survived an assassination attempt using poison — Putin’s weapon of choice — in 2020 but returned to Russia anyway in 2021, where he was quickly imprisoned.
Trump is currently a free man residing at his Mar-a-Lago resort property in Florida. He has been indicted on criminal charges four times in the last year on charges pertaining to falsification of business records, his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and his retention of classified materials after leaving office.
Legal commentators have suggested that the various charges vary in their validity.
“On 16 February, 2024, in penal colony No 3, convict AA Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. The facility’s medical workers immediately arrived at the scene and an emergency medical team was called in,” read the official statement on Navalny’s death from the Russian prison service. “All necessary resuscitation measures have been carried out, but they did not yield positive results. Emergency medics confirmed the death of the convict. The causes of death have been established.”
