Trump Says Congressmen Who Investigated Jan. 6 Should ‘Be In Jail,’ Capitol Rioters Will Be Pardoned

President-elect Donald Trump said he is looking to pardon his supporters who were at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In an interview with NBC News’ Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, he said those in jail for Jan. 6 are “living in hell.” 

Trump also said some members of the House who investigated the Jan. 6 attack should be the ones in jail. “I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day. They’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open,” Trump stated of his supporters.

Around 1,500 defendants have been charged, and 1,251 have pleaded guilty or been convicted. Six hundred forty-five defendants were sentenced to anywhere from a few days to 22 years in federal prison. Two hundred fifty people are in custody, and less than ten are in pretrial custody.

Trump was asked about those who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.

“I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system. They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.’ And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed,” Trump said.

Charges against Trump supporters include unlawful parading, obstruction of an official proceeding and seditious conspiracy, among many others. Among Jan. 6 defendants include members of the right-wing groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, a defendant who plotted to kill FBI agents who investigated him and a defendant who fired gunshots into the air during the attack. Trump did not say if he would pardon those individuals.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that obstruction of an official proceeding was being used top broadly in most of the Jan. 6 cases.

Trump has singled out Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), an outspoken Trump critic who left Congress, and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), the committee chair, saying they destroyed the evidence from their investigation.

Cheney responded to Trump in a statement: “There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting—a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee—and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct.”

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