Trump compared his felony prosecutions to those of "the late great gangster" Al Capone

Just as Mobsters have praised and expressed their support for Trump (Trump touted the endorsement of a notorious Mob killer, "Sammy the Bull"), Trump has frequently hailed one of the most notorious of Mobsters in US history, Al Capone.

Trump extolled Capone, or just "Alphonse," as Trump once collegially referred to him,¹ many times in the past few years.² In a January 30, 2024 Truth Social post, for example, and also at a rally in Indianapolis that month, Trump called out "the late great gangster, Alphonse Capone."³ At a rally in December 2023, he called Capone "one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals."⁴ In October 2023, Trump further explained Capone's distinctive characteristic to his followers: "He was seriously tough, right?" Trump added, "If you looked at him in the wrong way, he blew your brains out."⁵

Moreover, Trump frequently compared the indictments against him to those against Capone,⁶ exclaiming, for example, on May 4, 2024, "I got indicted like Alphonse."⁷ The legal predicaments of Trump and Capone were indeed similar, in that the felony convictions for both were for lesser, more technical crime than others for which they were accused. For Capone it was income tax evasion rather than the 200 murders to which he was believed by historians to be linked,⁸ while Trump's conviction was for campaign fraud.⁹

1. The Washington Post, "Trump escalates attacks on prosecutors, says Democrats run 'a Gestapo administration,'" May 4, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/04/trump-indictments-attacks-democrats-gestapo/.
2. The New York Times, "Trump's Third Act? American Gangster," March 25, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/opinion/trump-al-capone.html; MSNBC, "Trump lumps himself in with Al Capone (yes, again)," February 1, 2023, https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-lumps-al-capone-yes-rcna68633; The Washington Post, May 4, 2024, op. cit.
3. The New York Times, March 25, 2024, op. cit.; MSNBC, February 1, 2023, op. cit.; Raw Story, "Trump compares himself to 'the late, great' Al Capone while decrying prosecutor investigations," January 30, 2023, https://www.rawstory.com/trump-al-capone/.
4. The New York Times, March 25, 2024, op. cit.
5. The New York Times, March 25, 2024, op. cit.; Winston-Salem Journal, "Mark Z. Barabak: Trump's conviction offers a character test—of America and its values," June 6, 2024, https://journalnow.com/opinion/column/mark-z-barabak-trumps-conviction-offers-a-character-test-of-america-and-its-values/article_1a97844f-f412-5f1d-bdbc-63bfe78b1cfa.html.
6. As cited in note #2
7. The Washington Post, May 4, 2024, op. cit.
8. Mediaite, "Mafia Don? Trump Waxes Poetic About the Late Great Gangster Alphonse Capone at Rally, Just Days After Shouting Out Sammy The Bull," June 24, 2024, https://www.mediaite.com/news/mafia-don-trump-waxes-poetic-about-the-late-great-gangster-alphonse-capone-at-rally-just-days-after-shouting-out-sammy-the-bull/.
9. The Wrap, "Donald Trump Roughed Up on Twitter for Comparing Himself to Al Capone: 'Peak Dementia in Action,'" January 30, 2023, https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-twitter-comparing-himself-to-al-capone/.