Former President Donald Trump has issued what amounts to a dire warning following news he is now the subject of a federal criminal investigation regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Earlier this week, Trump said he received a letter from special counsel Jack Smith informing him of the investigation and inviting him to appear before a Washington, D.C., grand jury to provide testimony, which he said usually preceded an “indictment.”

On Thursday, during an interview on a local radio station in Iowa, the site of the first GOP 2024 presidential caucus, Trump said it will be a “very bad thing for the country” if he’s indicted and eventually sent to jail.

“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.

“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,” he added. “I think it would be very dangerous.”

To prevent detention in the event of an arrest for alleged Jan. 6 criminal charges brought by Smith, the Justice Department would need to argue that Trump poses a threat to society. However, Trump argues that the true danger to society lies in a weaponized DOJ and politically motivated prosecutor attempting to incarcerate the leading opposition candidate of a sitting president, Newsmax reported.

“They’re trying to cheat on an election by doing this,” Trump told WHO. “It’s election interference.”

Smith’s potential conflict of interest is evident, considering that his wife makes donations to President Joe Biden and is involved in producing a documentary about Michelle Obama, Newsmax added.

Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker recently stated to the outlet that discussions of pretrial detention for Trump are not only absurd but lack a legal basis. He emphasized that such attempts would be nothing more than a transparent effort to silence Trump’s presidential campaign.

“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,” he continued.

“It is the only way they can stop him.”

Whitaker added 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.”