Sen. Lindsey Graham doesn't seem eager to send his congressional colleagues to jail. The Republican senator publicly disagreed with President-elect Donald Trump's statement that the members of the Jan. 6 committee who investigated him for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and attack the Capitol should be imprisoned.
“President-elect Trump told me he thinks the members of the January 6th Committee should go to jail. Do you agree with that statement?” moderator Kristen Welker asked Graham on Sunday's episode of Meet the Press on NBC.
“No,” Graham said succinctly.
During an interview on last week's Meet the Press, Trump said of the Jan. 6 committee members: “Everybody on that committee … for what they did, yeah, honestly, they should go to jail.”
“Honestly, they should go to jail for what they did,” Trump added.
The committee in its final report concluded that Trump lied about the 2020 election and urged his supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 while Congress was certifying President Joe Biden's election. Trump has repeatedly threatened members of the committee, stating in March 2023 that they “should be prosecuted for their lies and, quite frankly, TREASON!”
Although Graham opposed Trump early in the 2016 campaign and said that Republicans should have “kicked [Trump] out of the party,” once Trump was in office, Graham became one of his most vocal and loyal sycophants.
But Graham did support Trump in this interview by stating that he believes Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for defense secretary, when he denies allegations that he committed sexual assault.
Trump hasn't always repaid Graham's loyalty. In 2022, Trump called him a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) because Graham didn't support Trump's campaign promise to pardon all Jan. 6 rioters.
Biden is reportedly considering preemptively pardoning Jan. 6 committee members to prevent Trump from prosecuting them. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who co-chaired the committee with then-Rep. Liz Cheney, said this past week that he would accept a preemptive pardon from Biden.
“The president, it's his prerogative,” Thompson said on CNN of the potential pardon. “If he offers it, to me or other members of the committee, I think I would accept it, but it's his choice.”
“Being in disagreement with a person is not a reason to lock them up,” Thompson added. “This is the House, where we debate issues, where we debate laws. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong. That doesn't mean you're illegal, and it doesn't mean that because you're wrong in the eyes of someone, you should go to jail. That's just so unfortunate, and that's not who we are as Americans.”
