“It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace,” Trump said of the prosecutions and prison sentences rioters have faced.
The Department of Justice has charged more than 700 in connection with the attack on the Capitol.
Trump raised the prospect of pardons after a speech repeating his lies about widespread voter fraud causing his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. Republicans in statehouses across the country have seized on Trump’s lies to enact new laws that would make voting more difficult for some, and to pursue ongoing reviews of the 2020 election results.
Trump did not explicitly say he will run for president in 2024. Doing so would trigger a series of legal and campaign finance requirements.
But he said, in 2024, “We are going to take back the White House.”
Trump also used the speech to rail against New York prosecutors’ investigations into his business empire, calling for “the biggest protests we have ever had” if the prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James earlier this month laid out details of what her office believes to be “misleading or fraudulent” financial statements. And Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. has vowed to personally focus on a probe into Trump’s business practices. Both prosecutors — who Trump called “racists” — are Black, and neither has faced credible accusations of misconduct.
“These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They’re racists and they’re very sick — they’re mentally sick,” he said. “They’re going after me without any protection of my rights from the Supreme Court or most other courts. In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you.”