Former President Donald Trump excoriated the Department of Justice and special counsel Jack Smith for engaging in "election interference" during a town hall with Fox News.
"This guy is a deranged prosecutor who has had tremendous failures all over the place. He's a nasty, horrible human being," Trump told Sean Hannity in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, about Smith.
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The town hall comes after Trump revealed he received a letter from Smith on Sunday that said he was a "target" of a Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigation. Trump also said the letter requires him to report to the grand jury investigating the Capitol riot within four days. The letter is not a guarantee that Trump will be indicated, but it does suggest that a later indictment is possible. Trump, however, said it "almost always means an arrest and indictment."
"It's election interference. Never been done like this in the history of our country, and it's a disgrace," Trump said Tuesday. "I guess they want to try and demean and diminish and frighten people, but they don't frighten us because we're going to make America great again."
"We're going into an almost a communistic state, and I think maybe we're even there," Trump continued. "When you look at what they're doing with — you could call it fascist, you could call it Marxist, you could call it communist—what they're doing, like with the Department of Justice, they've totally weaponized it."
Trump was previously indicted in June on 37 federal counts for allegedly mishandling classified documents. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. In late March, Trump was also indicted in a Manhattan courthouse over a hush money payment scheme to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential cycle. He pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts in that case.
The former president could also face another indictment stemming from a Georgia investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Allies of Trump rallied behind him Tuesday, including House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), and Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). "There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice," Donalds tweeted.
Trump's top 2024 rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), came to his defense during a sit-down interview with CNN earlier on Tuesday. "I hope he doesn't get charged. I don't think it'd be good for the country," DeSantis told host Jake Tapper.
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The former president shifted tactics during the town hall to say that Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, received unfair and lighter interactions when dealing with federal agencies. In particular, he noted Hunter Biden agreeing to plead guilty last month to federal charges over a failure to pay income taxes and illegally possessing a firearm.
"What happened to Hunter is you got a traffic ticket. Other people are being sentenced to many years in jail for doing much less," Trump said. "He got a traffic ticket."