Trump Warns of 'Problems' in US if He's Indicted

Donald Trump is predicting big, if unspecified, trouble in the US if he is indicted over his handling of classified documents. "I think if it happened, I think you'd have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before," he said on conservative Hugh Hewitt's radio show Thursday, per the Washington Post. "I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.' Hewitt pressed him on what he meant by "problems," but Trump didn't specify. "I think they’d have big problems, big problems," he said, per the transcript. "I just don’t think they’d stand for it. They will not, they will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes."

When Hewitt told Trump the "legacy media" would accuse him of inciting violence, Trump responded: "That’s not inciting. I’m just saying what my opinion is. I don’t think the people of this country would stand for it." Trump reiterated that he did nothing wrong, adding that an indictment would not bar him from running in the 2024 race, per the Hill. His comments on potential trouble echo those of ally Lindsey Graham, who recently warned of "riots in the streets" should the former president be indicted. The Trump interview came on the same day senators were briefed on the increase in threats to federal law enforcement officials since the Mar-a-Lago search, notes Politico.

Democratic judiciary panel chair Dick Durbin called the number of threats "stunning" afterward and criticized Trump for contributing to the problem. "Inviting a mob to return to the streets is exactly what happened here on Jan. 6, 2021," said Durbin. "His careless, inflammatory rhetoric has its consequences." But GOP Sen. Rick Scott said after the briefing that it demonstrated the need for more transparency about the reasons for the Mar-a-Lago search. "You have to give people good information so these rumors don’t continue," he said. "I don’t know why they raided the former president’s house. ... They know the conspiracy theories that are out there. So convince people that they’re not true." (More Donald Trump stories.)