‘I’m a Target’: Donald Trump expects to be arrested within days over January 6 riot

As Donald Trump prepares to be arrested for the third time this year, this time over the January 6 Capitol riots, he has spoken out about the bombshell news.

Donald Trump expects to be arrested and indicted within days over his extraordinary effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat and stoke the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

In the latest bombshell to rock the 2024 presidential race, in which the former president remains the Republican frontrunner, Mr Trump revealed he had been told he was a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the aftermath of his loss to Joe Biden.

That notification “almost always means an arrest and indictment”, Mr Trump said, as he reignited his “election interference” complaint ahead of his third criminal indictment this year.

He maintained without evidence that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” and accused Mr Smith – who was appointed as an independent investigator by the Biden administration – of being “deranged” and “evil”.

Pro-Trump supporters prepare to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Picture: Getty Images

“It’s a disgrace. If you say something about an election, they want to put you in jail for the rest of your life,” Mr Trump told supporters in Iowa.

“It’s election interference – never been done like this in the history of our country.”

The nature of the charges was unclear on Wednesday as Mr Smith declined to comment.

But his lawyers have gathered evidence of a range of tactics used by Mr Trump and his allies including assembling so-called fake electors in the battleground states he lost, pushing vice president Mike Pence to block congressional certification of the results, raising money off claims of election fraud, and encouraging supporters to protest at the Capitol.

Mr Trump said he had been given four days to report to a grand jury in Washington DC that had been tasked with assessing whether charges should be laid, although he was not expected to comply.

In June, Mr Smith charged him over his mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, marking the first federal criminal charges against a president. He was also indicted in April over hush money paid to a porn star who claimed to have slept with him.

Mr Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 defeat is at the centre of a separate investigation in Georgia, with the former president acknowledging there was a “probable fourth (indictment) coming from Atlanta” within weeks.

On Wednesday, criminal charges were also laid in Michigan against 16 fake electors who tried to help Mr Trump reverse his loss in the state through the US Electoral College system.

It never ends! The corrupted bureaucrats of the swamp will do anything to stop my father from fighting for you & putting Americans first. This is a mockery of justice & our constitution. We are a Third World nation in rapid decline, with only one cure. RE-ELECT DONALD J TRUMP! pic.twitter.com/IVFo2YcN0x

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 18, 2023

Republican leaders mostly defended Mr Trump on Wednesday and echoed his rhetoric about the “weaponisation” of the government, although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – Mr Trump’s top rival for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination – added that he should have “come out more forcefully” to stop the January 6 riot.

Fellow candidate and Mr Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley said the US “can’t keep dealing with this drama”, while ex-Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson called on him to suspend his 2024 campaign.

Mr Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment.

Originally published as ‘I’m a Target’: Donald Trump expects to be arrested within days over January 6 riot