A legal expert believes that a Trump ally's dramatic escape from prosecution abroad offers a glimpse of the president's own exit strategy.
Jamie Rowen, an international law expert and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, warned on a Saturday episode of All Rise News that President Donald Trump and his strongman allies appear to be laying plans to flee to friendly dictatorships if they lose power and face prosecution at home.
"You can imagine that if he loses an election that he thinks was rigged, even if it very clearly wasn't, and he loses by a sizable margin...that he too might face some type of criminal investigation for all of the crimes that he is currently committing," Rowen told journalist Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News.
She suggested Trump, too, would seek refuge in Russia, saying he "will have colluded with, say, Putin to figure out a way to escape to that country."
"That's all I can keep thinking," Rowen said. "They are laying a plan for all of them, no matter what the consequence in their countries are, to flee to other dictatorships that support them."
Her warnings came days after Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, lost Brazil's presidential election, claimed without evidence that the race was rigged and fled to Miami. Jair Bolsonaro was convicted over a coup attempt. The younger Bolsonaro is suspected of money laundering and corruption, and Brazil's Supreme Court had suspended his passport, Klasfeld noted.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the getaway involved a convoy of decoy cars, a private jet and a friend inside the Trump White House.
Rowen pointed to reports that the border authorities between Brazil and Argentina have no record of Bolsonaro crossing, which she suggested meant guards had been paid off. She also said he flew on an Italian passport after surrendering his Brazilian one.
"It's just shameful," she said, urging listeners to understand "how many people didn't do their jobs so that Flavio Bolsonaro could escape."
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