A former Trump administration official tried to downplay President-elect Donald Trump's demand to jail members of Congress who investigated the Jan. 6 attack — but CNN's Jim Sciutto repeatedly confronted him with the clip of him saying just that.
Trump, who has also indicated he will pardon most of the people who stormed the Capitol on his behalf that day, specifically demanded former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), and others "go to jail" in an interview with Kristen Welker.
"You remember, many Republicans who now criticize the investigation, many of them were cowering in their offices on that day because they as well feared for their lives from that mob," said Sciutto. "And as you remember, there was actually a bipartisan agreement for the committee, which was later scuttled despite negotiations. What's the basis, in your view, to make such claims like this, to say that members of Congress should go to jail for investigating an attack, that there was quite broad bipartisan support for investigating?"
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"Well, you know, even watching the full clip that you just played in the second time you played it, you see he was clearly — he's frustrated by the coverage of January 6th, he's frustrated by the members of Congress, but quickly backed off of it very quickly," said Matt Mowers. "Obviously, he's not saying that individual members of Congress should be actually thrown in jail because of those reasons. I mean, he even said, I'm not going to ask to direct the FBI to do any of that. In fact—"
"He said they should go to jail," Sciutto cut in. "I could read back the quote."
"But, so he did back away from it," insisted Mowers. "And actually the campaign came out right after that saying the law should be applied equally to everybody. And that's what he said as well. Um, you know, I think the question will actually remain now with the report, if there is actually evidence to back it up, you know, at that point, then it could actually open up an investigation. It's one that I think actually a lot of folks who follow the legal process would say is warranted, potentially, again, if the report is actually backed up, depending upon the evidence that's there."
"Well, let me don't trust my reading of it," said Sciutto. "Let's let's play the clip back ... for what the president-elect said about what should happen to lawmakers, former lawmakers like Liz Cheney."
"And Cheney was behind it, and so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee were for what they did," said Trump in the clip. "Yeah, honestly, they should go to jail."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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