Former President Donald Trump threatened worldwide demonstrations if prosecutors investigating him and his businesses “do anything criminal.”
He seemed to relate the investigations to his unsubstantiated assertion that the 2020 election was rigged, which sparked the Capitol riot on January 6.
“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington DC, in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt,” Trump told his supporters in Conroe, Texas.
Trump has faced a flurry of inquiries into his activities as president and his private enterprises since leaving office.
“In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you, and I just happen to be the person in the way,” Trump stated.
The House Select Committee on the January 6 Insurgency is looking into Trump’s conduct on that day and whether he or his allies committed any crimes.
The New York attorney general’s office and the Manhattan district attorney’s office have been investigating the Trump Organization’s financial operations for years.
New York Attorney General Letitia James says her agency has found “strong evidence” that the Trump Organization utilized fraudulent and deceptive asset appraisals on various properties.
“For years, they’ve been going after my company, many years, using every trick in the book in an attempt to literally, if they can, put me in jail. They want to put me in jail,” Trump said.
Trump repeatedly called the prosecutors “racist,” adding that they were “mentally sick,” and accused them of “prosecutorial misconduct at the highest level.”
“They’re going after me without any protection of my rights by the Supreme Court or most other courts,” Trump said.
Trump has gone to the US Supreme Court many times to try to prohibit investigators from acquiring papers and data related to their investigations.
The Supreme Court refused his effort to prevent the January 6 committee from receiving presidential records, which he tried to keep secret by claiming executive privilege.
Trump’s request to keep his tax returns secret was likewise denied by the Supreme Court last year.
