Donald Trump has called for the arrest and imprisonment of his political opponents so many times that the most recent example — his argument last weekend that the members of a House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should be in jail — is hardly even registering.
“I’m sure it was hyperbole,” Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi told NOTUS on Tuesday.
“President Trump sometimes speaks with some hyperbole,” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin agreed.
Even Sen. Mitt Romney, a frequent Trump critic, suggested it may have been a “metaphorical figure of speech to say, ‘Hey, this person deserves to be in jail.’”
“That’s one thing,” Romney told NOTUS. “It’s another to actually think that somebody’s committed a legal crime.”
Trump’s view is unambiguous.
“Those people committed a major crime,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” claiming the members of the panel destroyed testimony. “Honestly, they should go to jail.”
In June, he told TV host Dr. Phil that “sometimes revenge can be justified.” In July, he circulated a post on Truth Social calling for “televised military tribunals” of his enemies. Trump was offered multiple opportunities to walk those statements back during campaign trail interviews, but he would not.
During interviews with more than a dozen Republican lawmakers this week, members brushed off the most recent comments, insisted they were simply an exaggeration and denied the prospect that Trump would ever press federal law enforcement to investigate his enemies while in the White House. The lawmakers took some solace in his response during the same appearance when asked if he would direct his FBI director or the attorney general to send the committee members to prison; Trump said he wouldn’t.
“No, not at all,” he said, before adding that he thinks “they’ll have to look at that.”
“I’m not going to — I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill,” he said. “They can do whatever they want.”
Trump’s choices to lead the nation’s federal law enforcement activities are his stalwart allies. His pick to run the FBI, Kash Patel, was reportedly known to other Trump administration officials as a man who would support Trump, no matter the circumstances. Patel has also clashed with Jan. 6 committee members in the past.
Still, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, told NOTUS that Trump’s comments probably just expressed “his mood.”
“Maybe just one or two of them should be in jail,” he joked. “I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.”
Hawley wasn’t concerned that the incoming president is speaking this way about his critics.
“He’s said this a thousand times,” he told NOTUS. “His point is, I think, that they were totally out of control, illegitimate, and as we now know, really bad actors in many ways.”
Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana was also unfazed.
“Trump got reelected with a strong affirmation that regardless of the rhetoric, more than half the country wants something to be changed about this place,” he said.
Of the GOP lawmakers who spoke about the issue on Tuesday, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was the most supportive of Trump’s comments. As she left House votes, she effortlessly slipped into using Trump’s own derogatory language about the panel, calling it the “un-select committee.”
“Anyone who has politically imprisoned American citizens and completely ruined their lives should be investigated,” she said, referring to people who have been prosecuted after going into the Capitol that day. Trump has promised to pardon “on day one” most of the defendants who were charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack.
Rep. James Comer of Kentucky was also eager to see some accounting of the committee’s work.
“I’m anxious to see if they did anything improper,” he said.
Do any of his concerns about how the committee functioned rise to the level of a crime, though?
“We’ll see how bad the lies were,” Comer responded.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson shared similar views. “I’m not a lawyer,” he said. “I’m not a prosecutor, but there should be accountability there.”
And Texas Rep. Troy Nehls even told NOTUS that House Republicans should form a committee to investigate the investigative committee.
The panel found Trump responsible for sending his most ardent supporters to the Capitol as he tried to overturn election results to stay in power. Its final report included details about the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol, Trump’s response during it and testimony about delays in deploying the National Guard.
Lawmakers who served on the committee deny any wrongdoing.
“Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic,” said former Rep. Liz Cheney, who co-led the investigation.
Because Trump said he wouldn’t be personally asking officials to pursue his political enemies, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told NOTUS she didn’t see a need to comment on it.
“It was my understanding that he backed off that statement,” Collins said.
Trump did not back off the statement, but a senior adviser, Jason Miller, told CNN that Trump’s comments were taken out of context.
“He wants everyone who he puts into key positions of leadership … to apply the law equally to everybody,” Miller said, adding that Trump would leave the decision to Patel and others.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska responded to a question about it with only silence as she walked to a Senate Republicans’ lunch meeting on Tuesday.
And Sen. Chuck Grassley, meanwhile, said he has confidence in the officials who will be running the Justice Department in the new year.
“He’s expressing his opinion to you, but if there’s any action taken, it’s going to be up to the Justice Department,” Grassley said. “And he’s not trying to influence that decision.”
One Republican lawmaker did show some signs of alarm.
“I didn’t even hear he said that,” Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania told NOTUS. “Listen, the president says things from time to time. I’m sure, like everybody, he can be like, ‘You know, maybe I should have said it a different way.’”
Kelly noted that the panel he led to investigate assassination attempts against Trump was finishing its final report. “I hope nobody feels that way about us,” he said about the idea of putting House committee members in prison.
“We’re four years away from it,” he said of Jan. 6. “The members of the task force should go to jail? But they were appointed to do that.”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS. Em Luetkemeyer is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.