Donald Trump is using his power to bail out Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu from a corruption trial, dismissing it as a ‘witch-hunt’.
The US president – who has made a successful career out of bulldozing over institutions – is now abusing his global platform to diminish Israel’s judiciary.
Brandishing the case against the Israeli prime minister as a ‘witch-hunt’ is also a familiar move – straight from the Republican’s personal playbook -after he himself became a ‘victim’ of one when he was found liable for sex abuse in 2023.
Trump took to Truth Social in his latest tantrum to defend his ally following his military backing of Israel in the war against Iran, in which he attacked three nuclear facilities.
Hailing Netanyahu as a ‘warrior’, he said the ‘ridiculous’ trial comes after the two leaders went ‘through hell together, fighting a very tough and brilliant longtime enemy of Israel.’
The president ranted: ‘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!
‘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.
‘Anybody else would have suffered losses, embarrassment, and chaos! Bibi Netanyahu was a WARRIOR, like perhaps no other Warrior in the History of Israel, and the result was something that nobody thought was possible, 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!’
Ending the post, Trump said it was the US that ‘saved Israel,’ and now it is going to be the US that ‘saves Bibi Netanyahu’.
It was unclear if the president meant the US could do anything to aid the PM in his legal battle.
Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in Israel on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – all of which he denies.
The trial began in 2020 and involves three criminal cases. He has pleaded not guilty.
Israeli media have reported that cross-examination of the PM kicked off on June 3 and was expected to take about a year to complete.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog has the power to pardon Netanyahu, but has been quoted by Israeli media as saying that a pardon is ‘not currently on the table’ and that ‘no such request had been made’.
Trump’s war words for Netanyahu come after Israel backed supported his claims that the three Iranian nuclear sites were ‘obliterated’ – a point of contention between the president and his own intelligence agencies.
John Ratcliffe – the Trump-appointed head of the CIA – has now stepped in to provide some credence to Trump’s claims.
He said US strikes ‘severely damaged’ Iran’s nuclear facilities and set them back years, diverging from the leaked intelligence report that angered the president by downplaying the raid’s impact.
Ratcliffe confirmed key sites had been destroyed, though he stopped short of declaring that Iran’s nuclear programme had been eliminated outright.
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