Now We Know Why Trump Admires Putin, Kim, And The Chinese Regime - by Joe Conason

October 10, 2016 2:37 am

Now at last we know why Donald Trump so greatly admires Vladimir Putin. The Russian authoritarian doesn’t just talk about putting his political adversaries in prison. Putin has actually jailed the opposition — and that is an expression of power Trump would like to emulate. Last night, in the darkest moment of an angry and sometimes ugly performance, the belligerent billionaire uttered a threat never before heard in an American presidential debate.

“If I win,” spat Trump, “I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” referring to the email investigation closed earlier this year by FBI director James Comey. When Clinton replied that this thuggish outburst showed why we should be glad that someone with his temperament is not in charge of this country’s law enforcement, he retorted, “Because you would be in jail.”

So not only would President Trump — just like his role model President Putin — pervert the justice system to pursue a political vendetta, by appointing a prosecutor to investigate his opponent, but he already knows how the investigation and trial would conclude — just like in Putin’s Russia.

So now we understand exactly why Trump would tell us that Putin is “a strong leader,” why he would praise the “strength” of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and the Chinese Communist bosses who massacred students at Tienanmen Square, and why he would approvingly tweet a tough-guy quote from Benito Mussolini.

As Trump is surely aware, there is a long list of Russian journalists, opposition figures, businessmen, and human rights activists who have been imprisoned under suspicious circumstances or simply gunned down on the street. There is a violent undercurrent in Russian political culture, encouraged by the Kremlin, that suppresses opposition to the regime.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/now-we-know-why-trump-admires-putin-kim-chinese-regime/