Incoming President Donald Trump says U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, “should go to jail” for leading the congressional investigation into Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
While speaking to NBC Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker on Sunday, he said that “Cheney was behind it” and “so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee.” U.S. House Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, served as vice chairwoman of the U.S. House Select Committee on January 6th, with Thompson as its chairman.
“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” said Trump, who was set to go on trial for four federal felony criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the Jan. 6 attack until voters reelected him in November.
“Biden can give them a pardon if he wants to. And maybe he should,” the former and future president added.
In a statement in response on Monday evening, Thompson did not back down from blaming Trump for the Jan. 6 attack.
“Donald Trump has shamefully undermined the rule of law, degraded our democracy, and eroded our Constitution for years, and his latest lies about the work of the January 6th Select Committee are just the latest installment,” said Thompson, who represents Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, including most of Jackson and the Mississippi Delta. “But let me be clear: Those of us who investigated his central role in the January 6th insurrection are simply not afraid of his most recent threats.”
In a statement of her own on Monday, Cheney said that “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.”
“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” Cheney said. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave. This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”
Trump told Welker on Sunday that he has “the absolute right” to carry out revenge prosecutions. “I’m the chief law enforcement officer, you do know that. I’m the president. But I’m not interested in that,” he said.
Trump has vowed to pardon hundreds of his supporters who have been charged for storming the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. He is nominating former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for U.S. attorney general and loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI. In a 2023 podcast, Patel vowed to go after Trump’s media and political opponents in a future Trump administration.
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said at the time. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
Trump Urged Supporters to ‘Fight Like Hell’ on Jan. 6
After President Joe Biden defeated Trump handily in 2020, the Republican president unleashed a torrent of lies and conspiracy theories, telling his supporters baselessly that Democrats rigged and stole the election. Trump pushed officials in swing states to help him in his efforts, urging Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to help him “find 11,780 votes,” after he lost the Peach State by 11,779 votes. Trump’s lawyers also filed multiple lawsuits attempting to get the election results thrown out—efforts rejected by dozens of federal judges, including some of Trump’s own appointees.
The former president also summoned his supporters from around the country to come to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 to support the attempted electoral coup.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020. “Be there, will be wild!”
In a speech to supporters at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump urged them to march to the Capitol and “fight.”
“Something is wrong here, something is really wrong, can’t have happened, and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told them.
Soon after, thousands of supporters marched on the Capitol, with more than 2,000 storming the U.S. Capitol Building, interrupting Congress’ meeting to certify then-President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Rioters ransacked the building, stealing property and assaulting Capitol police officers and journalists. In response to then-Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to help Trump overturn the election, some supporters marched through the Capitol—where Pence was sheltering—chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” while a gallows stood outside the building.
Thompson: Trump’s Election History Can’t ‘Rewrite History’
After the Capitol assault, many Republican leaders, including the Republican Senate leader at the time, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, condemned Trump and blamed him for the attack.
Rep. Bennie Thompson was the only member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation to join a bipartisan majority, including 10 Republicans, that voted to impeach, including Trump for incitement of insurrection. In the House, Mississippi Republican Reps. Trent Kelly, Michael Guest and Steven Palazzo voted against impeachment. Later, both of Mississippi’s U.S. senators, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, voted to acquit Trump.
When the U.S. House and Senate voted to approve an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attacks outside Congress, Thompson and Guest were the only members of Mississippi’s congressional delegation to vote for it. After Republicans blocked the independent commission in the Senate, Thompson was the lone Mississippian in the U.S. House to vote to establish the select committee in mid-2021. It did not require Senate approval.
Across the select committee’s 10 public hearings on the attacks, dozens of mostly Republican witnesses who worked inside the Trump administration or under Vice President Mike Pence provided testimony. Hope Hicks, who served as counselor to the president before resigning on Jan. 12, 2021, testified that she and others urged Trump to publicly call on his supporters to act peacefully ahead of Jan. 6 and that he “refused” to do so.
On Dec. 19, 2022, the select committee referred Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 attacks. In mid-2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on four criminal charges related to the Capitol attack and a conspiracy to overturn the election.
After Trump’s election, a federal judge agreed to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to dismiss the charges, reflecting the U.S. Justice Department’s position that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted for crimes. His election victory also likely means he will not face penalties in the New York case where a jury found him guilty on 34 state charges related to hush payments he made ahead of the 2016 election.
But on Monday, Thompson said that Trump’s electoral victory does not change the historical record.
“Donald Trump and his minions can make all the assertions they want – but no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day. We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so.”