There is wild speculation special counsel Jack Smith's next coming indictment might lead to him arresting and detaining former President Donald Trump, but that would be a "very bad thing for the country," Trump says, and potentially cause the actual danger.
"I think it's a very dangerous thing to even talk about, because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters," Trump told Des Moines, Iowa's WHO Newsradio 1040 this week.
"I think maybe 100, 150 [percent] — I've never seen anything like it — much more passion than they had in 2020 and much more passion than they had in 2016.
"I think it would be very dangerous."
The Justice Department would have to suggest Trump is a danger to society to not be detained if he is arrested for alleged Jan. 6 criminal charges that could be brought by Smith. But, according to Trump, the real danger to society would be a weaponized DOJ and politically motivated prosecutor jailing the sitting president's leading opposition candidate.
"They're trying to cheat on an election by doing this," Trump told WHO. "It's election interference."
There is an apparent conflict of interest for Smith, whose wife donates to President Joe Biden and is a Michelle Obama documentary producer.
Talk of pretrial detention of Trump is not only absurd, but it is not based in law, and would merely be a transparent effort to silence his presidential campaign, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker told Newsmax earlier this week.
"I've never seen a broader abuse of prosecutorial discretion," Whitaker told Tuesday's "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"They are trying to get Donald Trump off the playing field, and, you know, obviously, any suggestion of pretrial detention tells you exactly what they're trying to do is prevent him from campaigning and sharing his message.
"It is the only way they can stop him."
Whitaker noted there are "only really two reasons you can detain a person under the federal system: Flight risk and a risk to themselves or the community.
"Donald Trump is neither," Whitaker concluded. "There's no reason to detain him pretrial and you know he should be allowed to continue his presidential campaign, and this does look more and more like election interference."