Former President Donald Trump recently called his recent New York civil fraud case and $354 million fine “a form of Navalny” on Tuesday which is just days after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a penal colony at the age of 47.
During a Fox News town hall with Trump, host Laura Ingraham noted:
During this campaign, a huge amount of your time has been spent in court, in the courtroom, in New York and so forth. Now in this New York civil fraud case, this judge Arthur Engoron ruled against you for almost half a billion dollars plus interest that runs every day. When I first read it was like $87,000 a day. How will you put up that kind of money? Because you have a bond to put up, even if you appeal you got to put up escrow money. That’s– it’s a lot of dough.
Trump replied, “It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. The guy is a nut job. I have known this for a long time and I’ve said it openly.”
He continued, “No jury, no anything. Letitia James is a horrible attorney general in New York. Campaigned on, ‘I will get Trump, I will get Trump.’ We went through a trial, it turned out we’re totally innocent on everything, and he fined me $355 million plus interest and other things, 355.”
Trump proceeded to pull a copy of the 8th Amendment out of his pocket, before reading the section which states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” to applause from the audience.
“It’s such a huge amount of money. You have to decide whether you’re going to put up that bond and escrow to appeal,” observed Ingraham.
“I do,” Trump replied.
