Donald Trump threatened trade war with Sweden over A$AP Rocky arrest

completemusicupdate.com:

Former US President Donald Trump threatened Sweden with trade restrictions if its government did not intervene to release rapper A$AP Rocky from jail after he was arrested in the country in 2019, the Swedish Minister For Justice Morgan Johansson has revealed.The rapper was held in custody for a month after being arrested on suspicion of assault following an altercation in Stockholm with another man called Mustafa Jafari.In a speech at the Swedish Bar Association’s annual dinner last week – reports newspaper Dagens Nyheter – Johansson recalled how Trump’s legal advisor Pat Cipollone had tried to pressure Swedish political leaders to intervene in the case.“He was sitting in the White House’s situation room [when] we spoke about this A$AP Rocky”, Johansson said of a video call that took place back in 2019. “It was a completely surreal experience”.Sweden’s Chief Justice Daniel Ström, who also took part in the meeting, told the newspaper: “It was a very special situation.

In normal cases, the tone is very polite in international contacts, but this was [different]”.Johansson added that he explained to Cipollone that the Swedish constitution prohibits the government from intervening in legal cases, in order to ensure the independence of the courts.

Cipollone apparently then said that Trump would be willing to personally pay Rocky’s bail to fast-track his release – only for Johansson to explain that Sweden does not operate a bail system.While the US may not have realised that there was no way to pay for the rapper’s release, Johansson said that Cipollone and his team did have some knowledge of the Swedish constitution.