Former Jan. 6 committee chair fires back at Trump's suggestion that panel members should be imprisoned

WASHINGTON — Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee, pushed back Tuesday against President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion that the panel's former members should be imprisoned.

The suggestion is "absolutely wrong," Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters on Capitol Hill, saying the committee did nothing "that violates the law."

"Just because you disagree with the work of the committee," Thompson said, it's no reason "to threaten those members of the committee with jail, so obviously that’s his opinion.

“I’m comfortable with the fact that as members of Congress, we were doing our job, and as long as we do our job, there are certain guarantees that we have, and I look forward to enforcing those guarantees," he added.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who served on the Jan. 6 committee as a member of the House, said Trump's comments are "not the kind of talk we should hear from a president in a democracy."

"I don’t think the incoming president should be threatening his political opponents with jail time," Schiff, who has for years been a target of Trump's ire. "That’s not the kind of talk we should hear from a president in a democracy."

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House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who was also on the Jan. committee, said Tuesday that he and the other committee members did their job and "upheld the rule of law." House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., also called Trump’s comments “an outrageous suggestion.”

The Democrats were responding to comments Trump made in an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that aired Sunday.

"Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," Trump told moderator Kristen Welker, claiming without evidence that they "deleted and destroyed" the testimony they collected.

"Honestly, they should go to jail," he said.

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Asked whether he would direct his attorney general or FBI director to make that happen, Trump said: "No, not at all. I think that they’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to — I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill."

Cheney shot back Sunday in a lengthy statement that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and "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."

"This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history," said Cheney, who campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris in this year's presidential election. "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."

After the panel's 18-month investigation, which included 10 public hearings, the committee concluded that Trump was the "one man" responsible for the efforts to overturn the election, which led to the attack on the Capitol.

In the interview with "Meet the Press," Trump also made it clear he plans to follow through on his promise to pardon his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many of whom were convicted and whom he has described as "hostages."