Donald Trump threatened trade war with Sweden due to the arrest of A $ AP Rocky
And finally Artist News Legal
By Andy Malt | Published Monday, July 4, 2022
Former US President Donald Trump threatened Sweden with trade restrictions if its government did not intervene to release rapper A $ AP Rocky from prison after he was arrested in the country in 2019, the Swedish Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson has revealed.
The rapper was detained for a month after being arrested on suspicion of assault after a fight in Stockholm with another man named Mustafa Jafari.
In a speech at the Bar Association’s annual dinner last week – It reports Dagens Nyheter Johansson recalled how Trump’s legal adviser Pat Cipollone had tried to pressure Swedish political leaders to intervene in the case.
“He was sitting in the White House’s situation room [when] we talked about this A $ AP Rocky “, Johansson said about a video call that took place already in 2019.” It was a completely unreal experience “.
Sweden’s Chief Justice Daniel Ström, who also attended the meeting, told the newspaper: “It was a very special situation. In normal cases, the tone is very polite in international contacts, but that was it [different]”.
Johansson added that he explained to Cipollone that the Swedish constitution prohibits the government from intervening in court cases, in order to ensure the independence of the courts. Cipollone apparently said then that Trump would be willing to personally pay Rocky’s bail to speed up the release – just because Johansson would explain that Sweden does not have a bail system.
While the United States may not have realized that there was no way to pay for the rapper’s release, Johansson said that Cipollone and his team had some knowledge of the Swedish constitution. The American lawyer pointed out that there is in fact a provision for the government to go in and force its own will in court under “exceptional circumstances”. And this was such an opportunity, Cipollone had insisted.
But Johansson countered that the last time that rule was enacted was during a terrorist attack in the 1970s, and he did not agree with the American legal man that a rapper accused of assault was a comparable situation.
“They had looked up and read about it [the provision for government intervention]so we had to argue and stand up for our Swedish principles “, added Ström.
When it became clear that the Swedish government would not only allow Trump to get his way, Cipollone then apparently threatened trade restrictions against the country. With such loud talk from the Americans, Johansson continued, he then asked the European Commission for support in the matter.
“If you can try to do something like that against Sweden, what can you try to do against slightly weaker countries that do not have the EU behind them,” he thought.
“This story shows how important it actually is to stand up for our legal principles and not take our democracy for granted,” he continued. “We should be extremely grateful to be able to live in a state governed by the rule of law and with the fundamental democratic principles that apply to our country.”
A $ AP Rocky was eventually jailed for a month pending trial before being convicted of assaulting Jafari.
Both sides involved in the quarrel claimed that they had acted in self-defense and that the other side had attacked first. Although Jafari had in any case been beaten and cut with a broken bottle by Rocky and two members of his entourage, which left him with several cuts that required stitches and some broken ribs. The rapper was sentenced to probation and sentenced to pay damages to Jafari.
Following his release, Trump and his team were reportedly angry that the rapper was no longer grateful for the president’s decision to get involved.
Trump later associated Darrell Scott told Yahoo that he had commented on Rocky’s manager John Ehmann: “The White House did not ask for anything. There were no conditions, but my condition… was that all I ask you to do is say thank you”.
A $ AP Rocky has actually commented on Trump’s involvement in the case, albeit not quite as Trump would have liked.
In a documentary about his time in internment in Sweden, ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, which came out last year, the rapper said: “It was a chess move and they tried to arm themselves a lot. In reality, I had no problem saying thank you to the man, especially if he helped me, that’s the story they are running – that he got me out. [But] he did not free me. If anything, he did [the situation] a little bit worse”.