Washington President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News Sunday that he intends to pardon the rioters as soon as he takes office and wants to imprison current and past members of Congress who looked into his provocation of the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump claimed that the members of the special congressional panel that looked into the Capitol riot had lied and ought to be imprisoned during an appearance on the network’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.
Trump singled out a committee. The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol was co-chaired by former high-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and a senior Black member of Congress.
Trump told NBC anchor Welker that Cheney, Thompson, and the members of the un-selected committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps, had done something that was unacceptable.
Trump aide Jason Miller retracted the president-elect’s remarks on Monday. Miller told CNN that Trump simply wants his administration to follow the law equally to everyone and that his comments regarding imprisoning Jan. 6 committee members were taken out of context.
According to media reports citing anonymous White House sources, President Joe Biden is considering preemptive pardons for Cheney, former Democratic Congressman and incoming California Senator Adam Schiff, who also served on the panel, as well as other individuals who might be singled out by the incoming Trump administration.
Trump will take office on January 20.
Cheney: Here is the truth
Cheney said in a statement Sunday that Trump’s actions on January 6th were the worst constitutional violations by any president in the history of our country.
The truth is as follows: According to Cheney, Donald Trump made an effort to snatch the 2020 presidential election and take control. He organized a vengeful crowd and led them to the US Capitol, where they stormed the building, fought police, and stopped the official electoral vote count. Trump refused to order the crowd to disperse for hours while he watched on TV as police officers were severely abused and the Capitol was attacked.
Just over 1,560 people were charged by the Justice Department for participating in the attack. According to the most recent department data, 979 of those pleaded guilty to offenses that included trespassing, assaulting police officers, and taking lethal weapons to the Capitol, while 210 were found guilty at trial. This implies that, depending on Trump’s choices, over 1,000 people might be pardoned.
Guns, OC spray, tasers, edged weapons like a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives, as well as makeshift weapons like smashed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves, are among the weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds, as demonstrated in court, the Justice Department said.
Pardons on day one
On his first day in office, Trump told Welker, he plans to pardon the rioters on January 6. He claimed that after being charged, their lives were shattered and that they had no choice but to attack police officers aggressively.
Trump blamed former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the incident during the extensive interview, and he repeatedly refuted allegations that antifa activists were involved in a plot to incite his supporters to attack.
During his address that day, Trump is seen on camera urging his followers to march to the Capitol and for Congress to do the right thing by not certifying Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Additionally, Trump misled Welker by claiming that the Jan. 6 committee had destroyed its evidence and investigative materials.
In actuality, the public has access to hundreds of witness interview transcripts, films, and internet exhibits. The final report, which is still accessible online and can be discovered with a quick internet search, was the result of the committee’s almost 900-page labor.
Kinzinger: We did nothing wrong
The only other Republican who served on the Jan. 6 committee, former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, claimed in a statement on Sunday that Trump’s warning is nothing more than the cries of a man who knows history would look down on him with disgrace.
To be clear, we didn’t do anything improper. According to Kinzinger of Illinois, the January 6 Committee’s work was motivated by the Constitution, facts, and the pursuit of accountability ideals that appear alien to Trump (published on Substack).
During his interview, Trump did not mention Kinzinger by name.
Requests for a response to Trump’s remarks were not immediately answered by Thompson’s office. For the last two years, Thompson has been the leading Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Additionally, States Newsroom’s request for comment on Biden’s alleged thinking of preemptive pardons was not immediately answered by the White House.
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