MOSINEE, Wis. — Former President Donald Trump, who has frequently falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen through widespread fraud, warned Saturday that he will seek to jail anyone who engages in “immoral conduct” during the announcement of the 2024 election results.
The threat came in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, in which he repeated false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and accused Democrats of “rampant fraud and wrongdoing.”
“The 2024 election, of which voting has just begun, will be under close expert scrutiny. If I win, those who committed fraud will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including lengthy prison sentences, to ensure that such a perversion of justice never happens again,” he wrote.
He added, “Please be aware that this liability extends to lawyers, political activists, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials. Those who engage in immoral conduct will be hunted down, arrested and prosecuted at a level never before seen in our country, unfortunately.”
The threat was one of the most far-reaching made by Trump since his 2020 presidential defeat, and went beyond threats to old foes and warnings to those involved in the current election.
Although he spent much of the 2016 campaign threatening to jail his opponent, Hillary Clinton, he has not been inclined to attack those on his fringe, such as donors or campaign staff.
Election workers across the country have been the target of threats, but the most notable are Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss, whose lives were uprooted after President Trump and his allies targeted them with false accusations of fraud after the 2020 election.
Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump began issuing baseless warnings of election interference and intensified after his loss, culminating in a mob storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s election. Trump has begun making similar rhetoric ahead of the 2024 election.
In a speech in Wisconsin on Saturday, he also stressed the Republican Party’s focus on ensuring the integrity of this election, suggesting that if Republicans stop Democrats from committing fraud, he wouldn’t need to continue campaigning.
“The cheating has to stop. If we stop the cheating and don’t allow the cheating, I don’t even have to campaign anymore,” Trump said. “We’re going to win by a landslide. It’s too big to cheat in the meantime. It’s too big.”
Trump and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits since the 2020 election attempting to overturn the results, all of which have failed. Some Democrats say new Republican legal battles in battleground states ahead of the November election raise concerns that Republicans are trying to sow doubt about the outcome if Donald Trump loses.
A Trump campaign spokesman could not immediately be reached Saturday night to provide additional information about Trump’s plans.