Where The Mighty Have Fallen

Infographic: Where the Mighty Have Fallen | Statista

Where The Mighty Have Fallen

When news of Donald Trump’s indictment broke last Thursday, the former president went on social media to vent his anger at the decision.

“The USA is now a third world nation, a nation in serious decline,” he wrote in all caps, suggesting that the indictment was a politically-motivated “attack” on the country and its “once free and fair elections”.

While the question of whether or not the charges brought forward against Trump are justified is up for the courts to decide; Statista’s Felix Richter notes that the United States is by no means the first country to prosecute a former president, even if Trump’s indictment is a first in the nation’s long history.

As Richter shows in the following chart, former leaders from all over the world, including wealthy democracies such as France and South Korea, have been charged or jailed after their time in office.

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According to research conducted by Axios, leaders who left office since 2000 have been jailed or prosecuted in at least 78 countries, the vast majority of these cases being related to corruption and/or illegal campaign financing.

Investigations into former leaders have been in the news around the world lately.

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial has fueled some of the outrage over his judicial overhaul plan, while Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to the presidency in January after his corruption conviction was thrown out

  • Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s home was surrounded this month in a botched attempt to arrest him, while former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak remains in jail after a judge this week threw out a challenge to his corruption conviction in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scheme.

  • Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s current vice president and former president, was convicted of fraud but remains in office and out of prison because her position carries immunity and because she’s launched what’s expected to be a lengthy appeal.

Brazil’s Lula and Italy’s Berlusconi have both managed to prove a trial, or even conviction, was not career-ending.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/04/2023 – 20:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/where-mighty-have-fallen