President Donald Trump has sharply criticized the conviction of French conservative leader Marine Le Pen for embezzlement, calling it a politically motivated "witch hunt" aimed at silencing her and other voices on the right. Trump, who has long been a target of similar politically charged investigations by the Democrats, expressed solidarity with Le Pen, arguing that the charges against her were an attempt to undermine her political career and intimidate patriotic leaders. Vice President JD Vance echoed the president, condemning the decision to bar Le Pen from running for office as a blatant assault on democracy, insisting that such actions only serve to discredit the political process and further alienate voters who feel their voices are being drowned out by the political elite.
“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
“It is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me by a group of Lunatics and Losers, like Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, and Lisa Monaco,” he added, referring to prosecutors who worked on an investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election. “They spent the last nine years thinking of nothing else, and they FAILED because the People of the United States realized that they were only Corrupt Lawyers and Politicians.”
Trump said that while he did not personally know Le Pen, he admired her grit to press on in the face of adversity.
On Monday, a French court ruled that Le Pen cannot run for office for five years after being found guilty of embezzling European parliament funds. She can appeal the verdict; however, it still wouldn’t make her eligible to run—meaning she cannot run in the 2027 presidential race. She was also given a four-year prison sentence and a 100,000 euro fine. Le Pen will serve two years imprisonment under house arrest.
In response, Trump dismissed the charge against her as a mere "bookkeeping" mistake.
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Vance pointed out that Le Pen had been leading in the polls and accused the French government of imprisoning and throwing her off the ballot, saying it was not democracy.
They are “an incredibly minor charge that implicates, by the way, her staff, not even Marine Le Pen herself,” the vice president added.
Elon Musk also criticized Le Pen’s court sentence, saying, “When the radical left can’t win through a democratic vote, they misuse the legal system to imprison their opponents.”
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