In an unusual intervention, Trump calls for canceling Netanyahu's corruption trial
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President Trump and Netanyahu in the Oval Office. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
President Trump called on Wednesday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial to be "cancelled immediately" or for giving him a pardon.
Why it matters: Trump's comments in a post on his Truth Social account were an unprecedented intervention by a U.S. president in a legal proceeding in another democratic ally.
- It isn't clear what prompted Trump's post. The president has rarely spoke publicly about Netanyahu's trial in the past and only yesterday he was visibly frustrated with the Israeli prime minister over the ceasefire with Iran.
Driving the news: Netanyahu is standing trial for three charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
- He has been accused of receiving more than $200,000 worth of gifts from businessmen and for giving regulatory benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a telecommunications tycoon in return for favorable press coverage on a website that was owned by the same businessman.
- Netanyahu's trial has been going on for four years, partially because the prime minister has been employing numerous legal delay tactics. The former head of the Israeli Shin Bet claimed Netanyahu tried to use his executive powers to delay his trial.
What he's saying: Trump wrote that he was "shocked to hear" that even after the war with Iran, the State of Israel "is continuing its ridiculous Witch Hunt" against Netanyahu.
- Trump stressed that he and Netanyahu "just went through HELL together" during the war with Iran. "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," the president wrote.
- "Despite all of this, I just learned that Bibi has been summoned to Court on Monday for the continuation of this long running, politically motivated case in order to do him great harm," Trump wrote.
- He added there is no one that could have worked in better harmony with the U.S. during the war than Netanyahu.
- "It was the United States of America that saved Israel, and now it is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu," Trump wrote.
