Jason Miller, a senior advisor to Donald Trump, on Monday sought to walk back the president-elect’s recent statement that he believes the members of the House’s Jan. 6 committee who investigated him should be jailed.
Trump, who has a history of calling for revenge against his political opponents, made the assertion during a wide-ranging interview on “Meet the Press” that was recorded Friday and aired Sunday.
“[Former Rep. Liz] Cheney was behind it, and so was [Rep.] Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee. For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said in the interview.
When asked if he would direct his incoming FBI director and attorney general to send the former committee members to jail, Trump said “no, not at all. I think that they’ll have to look at that, but I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill.”
During an interview on CNN Monday, Miller said Trump’s comments were taken out of context.
“What President Trump said, if you listen to the entire ‘Meet the Press’ interview, is he wants everyone who he puts into key positions of leadership … to apply the law equally to everybody,” Miller said.
He continued, “as far as the politics aspect, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he’s going to leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge, including Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.”
Cheney called Trump’s comments an “assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic” in a statement to news outlets Monday. It wasn’t his first threat against the former GOP congresswoman who went on to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris — early last month, Trump suggested he would like to see how Cheney would fare “with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her.”
Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who was also a member of the committee, said on CNN Sunday he is “not worried about it at all in the least” about the threats, adding it’s “not a sin” to embarrass Trump.