Donald Trump Thanking Ex-Hitman 'Sammy the Bull' Raises Eyebrows

Former President Donald Trump thanked ex-hitman Salvatore Gravano on Saturday for speaking highly of him, which has raised eyebrows on social media.

Gravano, also known as "Sammy the Bull," was an underboss for the Gambino crime family in New York City and worked with the United States government as an informant to take down mob boss John Gotti in the early 1990s. Gravano, who confessed to his involvement in 19 murders, was released from prison in 2017 after being sentenced to 20 years for running an ecstasy ring in Arizona.

On Truth Social on Saturday, Trump, the current frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, shared an interview of Gravano originally posted last week by YouTuber Dj Vlad in which the former mobster called Trump "a legitimate guy."

"Thank you to Sammy the Bull. I hope Judges Engoron & Kaplan see this. We need fairness, strength and honesty in our New York Courts. We don't have it now!" Trump wrote.

In the interview clip, Gravano said he failed at getting Trump to work with him because he always had ex-FBI agents around him and that Trump simply didn't want to get involved with the mob.

"I tried a couple times to press him and make arrangements where I could work with him and I did that with other big contractors. I had the power of the unions...But I couldn't get to him. He wouldn't bite. He just wouldn't bite. He didn't wanna do anything like that," Gravano said.

He continued: "One of my guys said, 'We'll go up to the office.' I said, 'We'll up to the office, everybody around him is an ex-FBI agent. We'll go up to the office, we'll get cuffed and we'll go right to prison.' So, forget about Trump. He's a legitimate guy. He don't wanna do it. Forget about Trump."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign spokesperson via email for comment.

Some on social media criticized Trump for using Gravano as a "character witness" and questioned why he would mention Judges Arthur Engoron and Lewis Kaplan in his Truth Social post.

Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch and vocal Trump critic, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, "Trump thanks Gambino Crime Family mobster, rat, and serial liar Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano, who confessed to 19 murders and countless kidnappings, armed robberies, burglaries & 1000s of other felonies, for vouching for him. Trump's new character witness."

"Sammy the Bull Gravano was a mob hitman who confessed to 19 murders. This is a not so veiled threat to two judges hearing cases against him right now. When will they stop treating him differently than other defendants and lock him up!" Karen Agnifilo, ex-New York City prosecutor and co-host of LegalAF on MeidasTouch, wrote.

X user @Caerage commented: "So, we have reached the part of this bizarre timeline we are living in where the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, a disgraced former president facing 91 felonies, who attempted a coup, and who committed massive business fraud--is citing Sammy the Bull as a character witness."

Engoron and Kaplan are both involved in civil lawsuits that Trump is currently up against.

Engoron just presided over a trial to determine how much Trump will pay in damages after he found that the former president submitted "fraudulent valuations" for assets that were then used by himself, his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his real estate company, The Trump Organization, to secure better loans and insurance terms. The lawsuit that led to the civil fraud trial was filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2022.

Meanwhile, Kaplan is set to preside over a trial later this month that will determine how much Trump will have to pay columnist E. Jean Carroll for defaming her in 2019 by claiming she was lying when she alleged that Trump had raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

The former president has denied any wrongdoing in both civil lawsuits.