Twitter users piled on Donald Trump Jr. on Sunday after he blasted Britain for letting a convicted terrorist out of prison who went on to fatally stab two people on London Bridge on Friday.
Critics noted that his father, President Donald Trump, enabled the escape of so-called Islamic State (or ISIS) fighters when he pulled American troops out of Syria in October, abandoning the U.S.’s Kurdish allies who were holding them in detention camps. Without American protection, the Kurds were vulnerable to Turkey, which invaded northern Syria immediately after the U.S. withdrew. During the Turkish incursion, more than 800 suspected ISIS militants escaped the Ayn Issa camp in the region, and the detention status of thousands of others was at risk.
The president said at the time that freed ISIS prisoners wouldn’t be his problem. “Well, they’re going to be escaping to Europe,” he told reporters. “That’s where they want to go; they want to go back to their homes.”
Referring to Usman Khan, the man responsible for killing two and injuring three more in London on Friday, Trump Jr. tweeted late Saturday night: “Such a shame. Two more lives needlessly lost because brilliant leaders decided to release a convicted terrorist ‘with links to Islamic extremist groups’ back into civil society.”
Usman was released from a British prison on parole last year after being sentenced in 2012 for plotting terrorist attacks.
Followers on Twitter couldn’t wait to blister Trump Jr. for the hypocrisy of his attack — and for using a tragedy to try to score political points.
