Donald Trump Jr. reacted to the indictment of longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer (CFO) Allen Weisselberg on Thursday, referring to the charges as “political persecution of a political enemy.”
“Definitely not a witch hunt, right?” Trump Jr. asked rhetorically in a video message shared to Facebook. “This is what they got. They were able to tie in the Trump Organization because he’s the CFO, right? They try to do that for the flowery headlines cause this is what they’ve been promising you, right?”
“How is this anything but a political persecution,” Trump Jr. continued. “How is this anything other than a government abuse of power?”
Trump Jr. accused the attorney general and the district attorney of “manipulating” things to make the case seem “really long and really scary and really powerful, saying “that’s what they do.”
Trump Jr. later asked how efforts to tarnish the Trump Organization and its employees are “any different than what Vladimir Putin does.”
“How is this any different than what Vladimir Putin does?” Trump Jr. said. “How is this any different? He jails his political opponents. A few years ago it would have been different. A few years ago they’d just slip them a radioactive pill or shot and they die. Now he just sticks them in jail.”
Trump Jr. concluded his remarks by claiming the “Justice system is dead” and warned that the “American way of life is going to be dead if it keeps going like this because it’s sick.”
“This isn’t what America’s about. This is what Russia does. This is what Iran does. This is what China does. But it’s happening right here, right now and so many people are totally silent about it…”
Weisselberg, 73-years-old, surrendered to Manhattan District Attorneys on Thursday ahead of criminal charges leveled against him for tax crimes and pleaded not guilty.
“Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband, father, and grandfather who has worked at the Trump Organization for 48 years,” a Trump Organization press representative said of the charges in a statement.
“He is now being used by the Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorched earth attempt to harm the former President,” the spokesperson added. “The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.”
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