Donald Trump says if elected in 2024 he might prosecute political opponents

WASHINGTON - Donald Trump is getting more and more vocal about prosecuting political opponents if he becomes president again.

Claiming without evidence that President Joe Biden and Democrats have "weaponized" the legal system against him, Trump said he is willing to do the same to them if he gets the chance.

"If they do this and they've already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse," Trump told Univision in an interview aired Thursday.

Repeating phrases he has used on the campaign trail, Trump said: "What they've done is they've released the genie out of the box."

Trump's threats have generated concern that he wants to use the government as a private police force.

National leaders who clashed with the former president, have said they fear targeting by a new Trump administration.

They include Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom Trump accused of treason and suggested should be executed.

“He’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list,” Milley has told associates, according to a long profile of the general in The Atlantic.

Different jurisdictions have indicted Trump in four separate cases.

They involve attempts to steal the 2020 election from Biden in Georgia and Washington, D.C,; hush money payments in New York; and mishandling of classified documents in Florida.

On the stump, Trump claims those prosecutions are political, and he has vowed retaliation. He has vowed to investigate Biden, son Hunter Biden, and congressional lawmakers who have investigated or impeached him.

In the Univision interview, Trump claimed "they have done something that allows the next party" to do the same.

Said Trump: "If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump says he might prosecute opponents if elected in 2024