Trump considers imprisoning political opponents and attacks E. Jean Carroll in wild interview

Former President Donald Trump again attacked writer E. Jean Carroll in a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday evening and suggested that his political opponents could soon face prison sentences.

Trump made the call to conservative broadcaster Newsmax just days after a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 counts in his hush-money trial. Jurors agreed that he falsified business records to cover up allegations of an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, and legal experts are wondering whether his repeated violations of a news gag order in the case will affect the judge’s sentence. Trump appeared to have again violated the terms of that order in the Newsmax interview – which prohibits him from making any public comments about the jury and which has not yet been lifted.

He then addressed his recent false claims that he never called for the imprisonment of his former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

“I said, ‘Wouldn’t that be really bad? … Wouldn’t it be terrible to put the president’s wife and the former secretary of state in jail … put the president’s wife in jail?'” Trump told Newsmax.

“But they want to do it,” he continued, seemingly addressing his political opponents. “You know, it’s a terrible, terrible path they’re taking us down. And it’s very possible that this has to happen to them.”

Trump continued to sharply criticize his recent ruling and spoke about the other cases currently pending against him before addressing the two defamation rulings against him by Carroll.

“I have never met this woman, I don’t know this woman,” Trump said on Monday. These statements are similar to those at the heart of the lawsuits against him. “And I’m supposed to pay a ridiculous amount for a fabricated story.”

Carroll sued Trump twice and won. A jury found Trump guilty of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and defaming her afterward, and awarded the writer $5 million in damages. Carroll filed another defamation suit after his repeated attacks on her. The jury in that case awarded her $83.3 million in damages after her lawyers argued he needed to be given a penalty large enough to make him stop.

The former president has posted a huge bail while he appeals the second case.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said Trump’s ongoing attacks could be the basis for another defamation suit in the future. She recently told The New York Times that “all options are on the table” moving forward.

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