Potential presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry started with a shot of humor Friday night as he addressed the indictment hanging over his head.

"You want to see Democrats really in desperation? It goes all the way to Texas and ... they will indict you," said Perry, the keynote speaker at the Republican Party of Pennsylvania's annual Lincoln Day Dinner on Friday evening. "You scare them, and they will indict you."

Perry has been indicted for allegedly abusing his office's powers after he threatened, and then followed through with, vetoing funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption, the Associated Press has reported.

And Perry attempted to explain his side to the roughly 500 people filling the ballroom at the Harrisburg Hilton.

"[The indictment] stems from me using my line-item veto power ... to zero-out the funding for ... the public integrity unit," Perry said. He added that unit was headed up by a Travis County District Attorney who was found "driving while drunk three times the legal limit."

"And then I had to make the decision on whether or not I'm going to send $7.5 million of Texas taxpayer money to the public integrity unit? An individual that has no public integrity, in my opinion," Perry said. "I vetoed those funds. And they indicted me for it."

Perry didn't mention that an ethics complaint from the left-leaning Texans for Public Justice government watchdog group has accused him of coercion since he threatened to use his veto before actually taking action -- as a means to push that Democratic district attorney to quit, according to the Associated Press.

Concerning his indictment, Perry said he thought "every elected executive ought to be up in arms."

"I think it's the reason you saw [New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie and [Louisiana Gov.] Bobby Jindal and all these other governors stepping in and saying this is a travesty," Perry said. "But that's who we're dealing with. These are the kind of people who will go to any length to destroy an individual to keep them from being a competitor."

Perry, however, didn't talk like he was backing down.

He touted aspects of his 14-year tenure as governor of Texas, including his decision to deploy National Guard troops to secure the Texas-Mexico border last summer.

"If Washington would not secure the border, Texas would," Perry said.

The longtime critic of the Obama Administration's policies also made an apparent dig at U.S. President Barack Obama -- calling the last six years those of "real frustration."

"When I look at 2008 and I see forward to where we are today, I understand why in 2016 Americans are not going to have a desire to elect an unproven, untested, no-results individual to lead this country," Perry said. "We're going to look for an experienced competent leader who has a record of results."