Why do Trump's boosters keep comparing him to a murderous mobster?

As President Donald Trump's defenders are increasingly struggling to present a convincing case, they're resorting to an odd historical comparison: murderous gangster Al Capone, reports the Daily Beast.

The argument is that the federal government is going after Trump and his associates in the hopes of taking them down any way they can. Capone, famously was done in by tax evasion.

Alan Dershowitz presented that argument on Fox and Friends Monday.

“The biggest crime you can commit in America today is to have been associated with Donald Trump. If you’re associated with Donald Trump, they’re going to Manafort you, they’re going to Cohen you. They’re going to do all of these things to you.”

But others have done the same, including NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.

"They’re trying to Al Capone the president,” she said on NRATV. “I mean, you remember. Capone didn’t go down for murder. Elliot Ness didn’t put him in for murder. He went in for tax fraud. Prosecutors didn’t care how he went down as long as he went down. The same goes for Democrats. Whatever avenue is needed to bring down the president, they’ll take it.”

The blog Right Wing News described federal efforts thusly: “They are looking to catch these people in a process crime... Think Al Capone and the IRS. It’s a trap meant to take down the Trump Presidency.”

Trump himself has deployed comparisons to Al Capone to defend his associates. “With Paul Manafort, who really is a nice man, you look at what’s going on with him, it’s like Al Capone,” Trump said in July.

The Chicago mobster, who's been dead for 70 years, trended on Twitter after Trump's comments.