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Far-right French politician Marine Le Pen has not proven to be as lucky as Donald Trump was in skirting consequences of breaking the law.<\/span>Alexis Sciard\/IP3\/ZUMA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n After a French<\/span> court found<\/a> far-right leader and former presidential frontrunner Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement on Monday\u2014a conviction that will bar her from holding political office for five years\u2014some of President Donald Trump\u2019s closest allies are boosting baseless conspiracy theories alleging that Le Pen\u2019s conviction is part of a global scheme to keep right-wing populists from holding office.<\/p>\n Le Pen is reportedly<\/a> accused of wrongfully diverting $5 million in funds earmarked for the European Parliament to staffers of her nationalist, xenophobic party, the National Rally, over a 12-year period. The verdict makes her ineligible to run in the country\u2019s next presidential election in 2027\u2014and comes after she was polling<\/a> at 37 percent, more than 10 points ahead of her closest challenger. Le Pen has run for that office<\/a> three times before, and became more popular as right-wing political parties across Europe rose in prominence in recent years; in the 2022 presidential runoff, Le Pen earned 41.5 percent of votes to President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s 58.6 percent. (Macron is term-limited.) <\/p>\n In addition to being ineligible to hold office as a result of the conviction, Le Pen will also have to serve two years\u2019 house arrest and pay a fine of more than $100,000. The politician has denied wrongdoing and said she intends to appeal the charges, which she dismissed<\/a> on French television Monday night as \u201ca political decision\u201d intended to prevent her election. \u201cThe rule of law has been completely violated by this decision,\u201d Le Pen added<\/a>. (Sound familiar?)<\/p>\n A variety of right-wing politicos from around the world condemned the verdict. Hungary\u2019s authoritarian Prime Minister Victor Orb\u00e1n posted on X<\/a>, \u201cI am Marine!\u201d Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro\u2014who will face a trial<\/a> on accusations of inciting a 2022 coup attempt seeking to overturn the election he lost, the country\u2019s Supreme Court ruled last week\u2014characterized<\/a> Le Pen\u2019s conviction to Reuters as \u201cleft-wing judicial activism.\u201d And Le Pen\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, National Rally president Jordan Bardella, alleged<\/a> that \u201cFrench democracy\u2026is being executed\u201d by the verdict.<\/p>\n You might think Trump\u2019s cronies would abstain from commenting and count themselves lucky that their guy managed to evade criminal conviction himself<\/a> for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. But you\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n Trump allies couldn\u2019t help but characterize Le Pen\u2019s conviction as evidence that the American president, too, had been unfairly targeted in his many court cases. \u201cWhen the radical left can\u2019t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world,\u201d Elon Musk wrote on X<\/a> in a post Monday morning, which had more than 16 million views by that afternoon. Musk made those comments when he re-shared a post from Mike Benz<\/a>, a former Trump State Department official who previously posted racist conspiracy theories online and interacted with white nationalists under a pseudonym, according to a 2023 NBC News report<\/a>. The Benz post that Musk re-shared on Monday grouped Le Pen and Trump with a series of others accused, or convicted, of crimes\u2014\u201d[Jair] Bolsonaro in Brazil, Imran Khan in Pakistan, Matteo Salvini in Italy\u2026C\u0103lin Georgescu in Romania\u201d\u2014and alleged, \u201cThe criminal prosecution of every populist challenger is a dagger in the heart of the credibility of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to another post from Benz<\/a> boosting the conspiracy theory about the Le Pen verdict, Musk wrote<\/a>: \u201cThis will backfire, like the legal attacks against President Trump.\u201d (But Trump has not, in fact, been immune from court rulings: Several court orders have successfully halted or even reversed some of his most outlandish moves since taking office for the second time, such as his attempts to overturn birthright citizenship<\/a> and fire thousands of probationary federal workers<\/a>. Trump was also found guilty<\/a> of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the hush-money payments he made to Stormy Daniels, and found liable by a jury of sexually abusing and defaming<\/a> E. Jean Carroll.)<\/p>\n Responding to a post from X user<\/a> Alex Lorusso\u2014executive producer of the right-wing commentator <\/strong>Benny Johnson\u2019s Benny Show<\/em> on YouTube <\/strong>\u2014that alleged, \u201cthey\u2019re trying the same playbook they did to Trump in France,\u201d Musk wrote<\/a>: \u201cSame playbook everywhere.\u201d And in response to a two-minute video posted<\/a> by Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a right-wing Dutch political commentator characterizing the Le Pen verdict as \u201clawfare against the European right-wing,\u201d Musk replied<\/a>: \u201cUnreal.\u201d<\/p>\n Donald Trump Jr. also got in on the baseless paranoia, writing<\/a> in his own post: \u201cFrance is sending le Pen [sic]<\/em> to jail and barring her from running?! Are they just trying to prove JD Vance was right about everything?\u201d (He was presumably referring to the vice president\u2019s well-documented disdain for Europe.) Trump Jr. made that post while re-posting another from Robby Starbuck\u2014a conservative activist who brags<\/a> about getting corporations to roll back their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts\u2014claiming<\/a> that \u201cthe left in France\u201d was behind the \u201cBS charges\u201d Le Pen was convicted of.<\/p>\n Trump does not appear to have publicly commented on Le Pen\u2019s conviction yet, and spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones<\/em> about whether the president supports Musk\u2019s and Trump Jr.\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n There is no evidence to support the idea that Le Pen\u2019s conviction was politically motivated; instead, it\u2019s a reminder that despite Trump\u2019s successful evasion of punishment himself, nobody\u2014not even an aspiring president\u2014is above the law in a truly healthy and just democracy. It\u2019s no wonder this concept triggers the Trump crowd.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n