Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : "There is an established track record of Trump having done this before," said Goodman of NYU.
48% : "In one recent interview, Trump said that if "radical left lunatics" disrupt the election, "it should be very easily handled by -- if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.
46% : Trump reposted Bannon's comments on Truth Social.
45% : "Lock her up" became a perennial call-and-response between Trump and his supporters at rallies.
44% : Trump wrote on Truth Social.
43% : "Trump was absolutely willing to use the Justice Department for his ends," former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a member of the select committee, told NPR.
42% : "In addition to using the powers under criminal law, Trump has also promised to take greater control of agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcast television and radio, including NPR's network of member stations.
41% : "John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in the Trump White House, said at an event earlier this year that he believed Trump would use the Department of Justice to enact a "retribution presidency.
40% : After Trump left office, he received a settlement that restored his back pay, retirement benefits and rank.
38% : "START ARRESTING THE POLL WORKERS AND WATCH HOW FAST THEY TELL YOU WHO TOLD THEM TO CHEAT," reads a message Trump reposted on social media in 2023.
38% : "Trump's allies have also promised to weaken or even end the Justice Department's independence from the White House if he returns to office, which would give Trump and his political appointees greater ability to direct the federal prosecutions.
38% : McCabe considered himself a moderate Republican, but Trump seized on the fact that McCabe's wife had run unsuccessfully for the Virginia state Senate in 2015 as a Democrat.Trump publicly pressured the department to fire McCabe before he would be eligible to receive retirement benefits, writing on Twitter, "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits.
37% : Trump has not threatened her with jail time or prosecution, but did attack her in personal terms after she published a book critical of the administration.
36% : Trump is appealing the judgment against him.
35% : "Trump has said he will appoint the "most ferocious legal warriors against crime and Communist corruption that this country has ever seen.
34% : "Journalists who decline to identify the sources of leaked information would also face imprisonment, Trump said.
34% : He found 11 other cases in which Trump pushed the Justice Department to investigate his rivals.
32% : (Trump also urged prosecution publicly on Twitter.)
31% : "That statement, on Fox News, was not the first time Trump has expressed support for using government force against domestic political rivals.
31% : Since 2022, when he began preparing for the presidential campaign, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, NPR has found.
31% : McCabe said he has had difficult conversations with his family about what Trump might do if he returns to the White House, and he knows other former officials who are also contemplating leaving the country.
30% : "Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI," Trump posted.
28% : When right-wing radio host Glenn Beck asked Trump if he would lock up his opponents in a second term, Trump responded, "The answer is you have no choice because they're doing it to us.
28% : In one instance, Trump suggested that Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in his administration, could face execution for calling officials in China to try and defuse tensions in the chaotic aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.
27% : New York Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron "should be arrested and punished accordingly," Trump said at a rally in January.
27% : While in office, Trump attempted to "purge" the FBI of people he perceived as disloyal, McCabe said in an interview.
26% : "If the reporter doesn't want to tell you, it's 'bye-bye,' the reporter goes to jail," Trump said in 2022.
26% : The threats he's made have already led some of his targets to prepare for the worst by saving money and considering whether to leave the country if Trump wins the election.
26% : In a 2021 interview, Vance said Trump should ignore court rulings if they constrain the administration's ability to replace career officials with political loyalists.
26% : "Trump made the prosecution of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the 2016 election, a centerpiece of his first presidential campaign.
26% : "What I'm just asking you to do is to say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen," Trump told officials in his Justice Department, according to testimony obtained by the select committee.
24% : "Legal experts said that there are few guardrails preventing Trump from pursuing his plans to prosecute opponents and noted that Trump pressured the Department of Justice to investigate rivals during his first term.
24% : After his presidential debate against Harris on ABC News, Trump called for the FCC to revoke ABC's broadcast license, due to his perception of the moderators' bias.
22% : In one of those cases, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts in connection with hush money he paid to keep an alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels secret.
22% : Trump posted on Truth Social that "massive fraud" in the 2020 election justified "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."
20% : If Trump follows through on his stated plans in a second term, these experts said, his actions could endanger Americans' civil liberties and cause a chilling effect on criticism of the president.
20% : James successfully brought a civil fraud case against Trump, which Engoron presided over.
20% : And while the Justice Department under Trump did not ultimately charge Clinton, there's substantial evidence that his pressure on prosecutors did have an impact in some cases.
19% : "ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON," reads one post Trump reposted on his social media site, Truth Social, regarding the former Republican congresswoman.
19% : Milley, who retired in 2023, has since told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is "fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to this country.
19% : Trump repeatedly attacked McCabe, because he was in the leadership of the FBI during the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election and because he perceived McCabe as a partisan enemy.
18% : The Jan. 6 Select Committee in Congress presented additional evidence of Trump putting pressure on prosecutors to say they found widespread fraud in the 2020 election, despite a lack of evidence.
18% : Trump continues to threaten McCabe.Steve Bannon, who served as Trump's chief strategist in the White House and remains a prominent supporter, said on his podcast that McCabe "should be worried" that Trump would go after him if he returns to the White House.
17% : But there's no evidence that Biden has directed the federal cases against Trump.
15% : "I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family," Trump said last year.
13% : "Amid this flood of threats against his opponents, Trump has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of "weaponizing" the Justice Department and subjecting him to "political persecution" and a "witch hunt.
11% : "Vice President Kamala Harris "should be impeached and prosecuted," Trump said at a rally last month.
11% : "One of Trump's most frequent targets in his first term was Andrew McCabe, a longtime FBI official who became the bureau's acting director when Trump fired James Comey in 2017.
7% : Trump and his allies have either downplayed these threats, or said that these actions would be justified, in part, because of the four criminal prosecutions brought against Trump since he left office.
3% : "In one instance described in the Mueller report and cited by Goodman, Trump urged then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

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