US President Donald Trump on Monday told the Israeli parliament that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases, should be pardoned.
Netanyahu and his wife Sara are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours.
“Cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about that?” Trump joked, declaring his ally Netanyahu’s one of Israel’s greatest wartime leaders.
“Hey, I have an idea, Mr President,” Trump said, addressing his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog, “Why don’t you give him a pardon?”
“By the way, that was not in the speech, as you probably know. But I happen to like this gentleman right over here,” he added, indicating Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the three court cases, and his supporters have dismissed the long-running trials as politically motivated.
Besides the gifts affair, Netanyahu is accused of attempting to negotiate more favourable coverage from two Israeli media outlets in two other cases.
During his current term, which started in late 2022, Netanyahu has proposed far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say sought to weaken the courts.
Those prompted massive protests that were only curtailed after the onset of the Gaza war.
Last month, Herzog indicated that he could grant Netanyahu a pardon, saying in an interview that the prime minister’s case “weighs heavily on Israeli society”.
The Israeli premier is also subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on suspicion of ordering war crimes in his government’s assault on Hamas militants in Gaza.
Trump, a frequent vocal defender of Netanyahu, did not address the international case in his Knesset speech, but Washington has previously condemned the warrant and imposed sanctions on some ICC staff.
In a post published on his social media network Truth Social in June, Trump called Netanyahu’s trials a “political witch hunt” that was “very similar to the witch hunt that I was forced to endure”.
Trump himself has long accused his political opponents of using the Justice Department to target him during his time out of office.
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