Former President Donald Trump called for nationwide protests at a rally in Texas if prosecutors investigating him and his businesses “do anything illegal.”
In his speech, he appeared to link the investigations to his baseless claim 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 the crowd in Conroe, Texas on Saturday night.
Trump has faced a flurry of investigations into his actions as president and his private businesses 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 told his supporters at the rally.
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is looking into Trump’s actions on that day and whether Trump or his supporters committed any crimes.
The Trump Organization’s financial dealings have also been the subject of multi-year investigations by the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
According to New York Attorney General Letitia James, her office has uncovered “significant evidence” that the Trump Organization used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations on a number of 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 at the rally on Saturday.
The former president repeatedly called the prosecutors “racist,” said 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.
On several occasions, Trump has petitioned the US Supreme Court to prevent investigators from obtaining documents and records related to their investigations.
The Supreme Court denied his request this month to prevent the January 6 committee from obtaining presidential records, which he attempted to withhold by citing executive privilege.
Last year, the Supreme Court also rejected Trump’s request to keep his tax returns secret.
