Putin’s And Biden’s Chief Political Opponents Are Now Both Under Arrest

Former President Donald Trump was indicted last Thursday, signaling the beginning of America’s “banana republic” era. Now, both Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin share something in common as authoritarian rulers: their main political opponents have been arrested.

On Tuesday, Trump arrived at a New York City criminal court to face charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Bragg campaigned for the office two years ago on a platform to investigate the former president. The Manhattan charges stem from 2016 hush money payments in a case that prosecutors previously declined to pursue.

Trump is scheduled to make a prime-time address from his Mar-a-Lago palace Tuesday night. The Florida residence was raided by FBI agents last August under a separate investigation at the personal direction of Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland. President Biden has remained silent on the political prosecution of his chief antagonist and likely opponent in the upcoming election.

One investigation by the Department of Justice is probing whether to indict Trump on charges related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and another is investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act. Trump also faces a criminal probe by local prosecutors in Georgia regarding efforts to challenge the 2020 election.

In Russia, opposition leader Alexei Navalny was given a nine-year prison sentence after already serving more than two-and-a-half years in a penal colony east of Moscow. Russian prosecutors accused Navalny of fraud and contempt of court. Similar to the Trump investigations in New York, Georgia, and Washington D.C., which have been orchestrated to keep the former president off the ballot, the aggressive prosecution of Putin’s lead opposition figure has been widely condemned as politically motivated.