Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of House, suggested that Republicans could use hypothetical midterm wins to target and possibly imprison members on the House select committee that is investigating the attack on the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Gingrich, who has been advising Republican leaders for the past several months, while appearing on Fox News Sunday to discuss the latest developments regarding the select committee’s work.
“You’re going to have a Republican majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate” after the 2022 midterm races, Gingrich said. “And all of these people who have been so tough and so mean and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas.”
Gingrich didn’t offer any concrete reasons for issuing subpoenas.
“I think when you have a Republican Congress,” Gingrich predicted, “this is all going to come crashing down. And the wolves are going to find out they are now sheep and they’re the ones who are going to face a real risk of, I think, jail for the kind of laws they’re breaking.”
Grigrich didn’t explain the wrongdoing or infractions that January 6 commission members committed in pursuit of their inquiry.
The House select committee was established to “investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol” and to “report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to” that attack. A mob of loyalists to former President Donald Trump committed violence Shortly after the speech of incendiary rhetoric by the defeated Republican candidate, urging them to go directly to Congress to “take back” the country following his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Many Republicans who initially condemned the attack have since reversed their stances from a year back and instead urged Congress to “take back” the country. engaged in a revisionist, fictional retelling of what happened that day.
Gingrich’s claims that the commission’s work has been unlawful (and similar claims made by other RepublicansThe investigation is invalid. have been countered by defenders of the select committeeThe members of the commission have pointed out that it has the same powers as other select committees in the past, including the congressional investigation on the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the inquiry into the attack against a U.S. consulate at Benghazi.
“A former Speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6 attack on our Capitol and our Constitution. This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming).
“You know, it leaves me speechless,” commission member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) addedWhile speaking with reporters. “I mean, unless he is assuming that the government does get overthrown and there’s no system of justice.
