Trump Threatens to Jail Adversaries    09/09 06:07

   

   MOSINEE, Wis. (AP) -- With just days to go before his first and likely only 
debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump 
posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those "involved 
in unscrupulous behavior" this election, which he said would be under intense 
scrutiny.

   "WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest 
extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this 
Depravity of Justice does not happen again," Trump wrote late Saturday, sowing 
doubt once more about the integrity of the election, even though cheating is 
incredibly rare.

   "Please beware," he went on, "that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, 
Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. 
Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and 
prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country."

   Trump's message represents his latest threat to use the office of the 
presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence 
of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, 
dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have 
said he lost fairly.

   Just days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had 
indeed "lost by a whisker."

   While Trump's campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on 
Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border 
security, Trump in recent days has veered far off course.

   On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he 
brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing 
several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers' allegations. 
Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a 
decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal 
woes in the campaign's final stretch.

   Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything 
from his indictments to Russia's meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned 
in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.

   "The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail -- they want me in jail 
-- for the crime of exposing their corruption," Trump claimed at an outdoor 
rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bulletproof 
glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.

   There's no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris have had any 
influence over decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to 
indict the former president.

   Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparation, choosing to hold rallies 
and events while Harris has been cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown 
Pittsburgh, working with aides since Thursday.

   Harris has agreed so far to a single debate, which will be hosted by ABC.

   At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to "Drain the swamp" -- a throwback 
to his winning 2016 campaign message as he ran as an outsider challenging the 
status quo. Though Trump spent four years in the Oval Office, he vowed anew to 
"cast out the corrupt political class" if he wins again and to "cut the fat out 
of our government for the first time, meaningfully, in 60 years."

   As part of that effort, he repeated his plan, announced Thursday, to create 
a new "Government Efficiency Commission" headed by Elon Musk that will be 
charged with conducting "a complete financial and performance audit of the 
entire federal government" to root out waste.

   After again maligning the Congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 
6, 2021, attack on the nation's capitol by his supporters after his election 
loss in 2020, Trump told the crowd of thousands that he would "rapidly review 
the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime" 
and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.

   Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes 
including violent attacks on law enforcement.

   And he said he would "completely overhaul" what he labeled "Kamala's corrupt 
Department of Injustice."

   "Instead of persecuting Republicans, they will focus on taking down 
bloodthirsty cartels, transnational gangs, and radical Islamic terrorists," he 
said.

   Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with 
a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will "use his unchecked 
power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently 
attacked our Capitol on January 6."

   Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a 
state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by 
less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after 
Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.

   Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win "blue wall" states. 
Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 
21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 
votes, in 2016.

   As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to 
visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh's Strip District, where she bought several 
seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly 
weeping as Harris hugged her and said, "We're going to be fine. We're all in 
this together."

   Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: 
former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former 
Wyoming congresswoman.

   "People are exhausted, about the division and the attempts to kind of divide 
us as Americans," she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be 
that the country wants to be united.

   "It's time to turn the page on the divisiveness," she said. "It's time to 
bring our country together, to chart a new way forward."

   Trump held his rally in the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a 
population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin's mostly rural 7th 
Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.

   During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, 
claiming that if the woman he calls "Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more 
years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic" ruled by "anarchy" 
and "tyranny."

   Trump also railed against the administration's border policies, calling the 
Democrats' approach "suicidal" and accusing them of having "imported murderers, 
child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet."

   Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country 
illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime 
in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a 
pandemic-era spike.

   He dismissed warnings from U.S. officials about ongoing Russian attempts to 
spread disinformation ahead of November's election, including an indictment 
this past week that alleged a media company linked to six conservative 
influencers was secretly funded by Russian state media employees.

   "The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again," 
Trump told the crowd. "And, you know, the whole world laughed at it this time."

   Among those in the crowd was Dale Osuldsen, who was celebrating his 68th 
birthday Saturday at his first ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump 
administration will take on "cancel culture" and bring the country back to its 
"foundational past.

   "We've had past administrations say they want to fundamentally change 
America," Osulden said. "Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing."

   Many supporters embarked on hours-long drives from across Wisconsin to see 
Trump speak. Some came from even further.

   Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA-themed rap music under the 
stage name, "King Bullethead," blasted his songs from a truck in the event 
parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies approximate the experience of 
a raucous concert.

   "Trump is a rockstar," Moon said. "He's incredible. People see he represents 
them and the deep state trying to kill him and take him out. But he's standing 
strong, and he stands for the normal person."

   Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state's two largest cities, 
Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like 
Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must win the votes in places like 
Mosinee to have any chance of cutting into the Democrats' advantage in urban 
areas.

   Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump 
has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the 
western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.

   Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the 
same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a 
rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away 
in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day 
rally organized by unions.