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- Trump threatened to "indict" Joe Biden if a pending legal case doesn't go his away.
- It's the latest in a long string of threats Trump has issued to his political opponents.
Former President Donald Trump says federal courts better give him total immunity from criminal prosecution — or he'll go after Joe Biden if he wins this year.
"If I don't get Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn't get Immunity," Trump wrote in an early-morning post on his social media site.
Trump — the GOP frontrunner for 2024 who lost to Biden in 2020 — has promised to go to Washington D.C. on Tuesday to hear his lawyers argue that he should have blanket immunity.
The former president has repeatedly threatened and at times pushed to jail his political opponents, dating back to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. In recent weeks, Trump has shown a tendency to embrace authoritarian rhetoric. He even went so far as to tease that he would be a "dictator" only on "day one" of his potential return to the White House.
It's not entirely clear what Trump means by his threat since presidents don't hand down indictments.
In all federal criminal cases, a grand jury must be empaneled and agree to move forward with the charges. That being said, the former president has historically favored a level of involvement in the judicial branch that calls into question the fundamental values of the separation of power and the rule of law that Americans hold so dear.
Trump is facing four criminal cases this year as he runs again for the presidency, including allegations he tried to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, as well as mishandled classified documents and obstructed the government's attempts to get them back.
Trump and his lawyers have argued that the former president's plan to get Congress to throw out the election results was part of his job as president, meaning his actions can't be criminal.
"I was looking for voter fraud, and finding it, which is my obligation to do, and otherwise running running our Country," Trump wrote, continuing to spread his election lies (Trump's allegations of widespread voter fraud have been thrown out of court).
Trump says Biden would be next if his own cases aren't dropped.
"By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora's Box," Trump wrote.
Trump has argued without any evidence that the criminal cases against him are being ordered by Biden and his administration to target him. Special Counsel Jack Smith called those accusations false.
Smith recently asked a judge to order Trump to leave politics out of court, raising concerns that jurors might acquit him, even if they know he's guilty.
It is worth pointing out that the same Justice Department is currently investigating Hunter Biden, the president's son.