Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, February 16, 2024

Joe Biden on Friday blamed Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison.

“Reports of his death, if they’re true, and I have no reasons to believe they’re not … was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did,” Biden said in remarks from the White House.

[Also on Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron fined former President Donald Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization in a civil business fraud case for $354 million and barred him from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years. Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley called the ruling “confiscatory, extreme, and abusive.” Local and federal prosecutors have in an election-year offensive filed four indictments against Trump for 91 counts: 34 counts in New York, with a maximum penalty of 136 years; 40 counts in Miami, with up to 450 years; four counts in Washington, DC, with up to 55 years; and 13 counts in Georgia, with up to 76.5 years. The assault could potentially bankrupt Biden’s leading political opponent and place him in prison for the rest of his life.]

 

The Russian Federal Prison Service said Friday that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived, and its crew tried to resuscitate him but was unsuccessful, it added.

The ironies from the day’s political wars were lost on leftist politicians and the Biden corporate-state media.

Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc. (PMI), noted on social media: “The U.S. govt has no high ground to dictate to Russia for Alexei Navalny’s death in prison after jailing thousands of Jan 6 protesters.”

White House correspondent Simon Ateba of Today’s News Africa, wrote: “May the souls of Gonzalo Ángel Quintilio Lira López, an American citizen and journalist left to die in a Ukrainian prison, and Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader left to die in a Russian prison, rest in peace. May Julian Assange not die in prison for telling the truth.”

Related: American journalist Gonzalo Lira died from neglect in Ukrainian prison , January 14, 2024

Human Events editor Jack Posobiec noted in a Telegram post: “Biden wants to throw the opposition leader, Trump, in prison. We know Biden has been pressing Garland to move up the trials before the election. Biden wants Trump to die behind bars like Navalny. Glad today we don’t throw political opposition in jail. Imagine, living in a country where you get locked up for what you say in politics. Imagine getting sent to jail for just posting a tweet, or a meme.”

Related: Satirist sentenced to 7 months in prison for 2016 meme aimed at Hillary voters, October 18, 2023

Navalny was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, and in December was moved from a different prison to the highest-security level facility in the country near the Arctic Circle. The “special regime” penal colony prison in the town of Kharp, which is about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow, is in a remote area known for its severe winters.

Navalny had been imprisoned since January 2021, when he returned to Russia after recovering from a poisoning that he blamed on Putin, who has denied trying to kill Navalny with a nerve agent.

Biden used the occasion of Navalny’s death to call on House Republicans to pass billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine in its war against Russian forces, saying Navalny’s death “reminds us of the stakes of this moment.”

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  Biden blames Putin for prison death of opposition leader Navalny as NY judge lowers the boom on Trump, WorldTribune.com