Jason Miller tries to spin Trump on calls to jail Jan. 6 investigators

Trump senior adviser Jason Miller appeared on camera Monday morning, attempting to explain remarks made by the President-elect on Sunday. Miller explained that when Donald Trump said Republican former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, should be imprisoned, it was not intended as a literal call for her incarceration. Instead, Miller suggested that the statement was meant to promote the equal application of the rule of law in America.

“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday (video below). He was referring to Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, and its chairman, Democrat Bennie Thompson.

Trump, The New York Times reported, falsely claimed that the committee had destroyed all the evidence it had collected.

“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” he said. “They deleted and destroyed all evidence.”

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“And Cheney was behind it. And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee,” Trump alleged.

The Times reports, “In fact, the committee did not destroy all evidence. It released an 800-page report as well as 140 transcripts of testimony and various memos, emails and voice mail messages. The evidence remains online. Mr. Thompson explained in a letter last year that the committee had asked the executive branch to go through some material first to protect ‘law enforcement sensitive operational details and private, personal information that, if released, could endanger the safety of witnesses.’”

Cheney “said the incoming president ‘lied about the Jan. 6 select committee’ and that there would be ‘no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis’ to prosecute its members,” The Times adds.

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” she said in a statement, according to The Times. “He 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. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”

“This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history,” Cheney also said in her statement. “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.”

But Miller, who has been with Trump for much of the time since his 2016 presidential campaign, suggested the President-elect did not call for Cheney to be imprisoned.

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“Look, Liz Cheney is someone who lost her primary, who got bounced out by a very good Republican who’s been bitter and attacking President Trump ever since,” Miller told CNN’s Pamela Brown Monday morning. “I think Liz Cheney, quite frankly, for what she did, I have my own personal opinions about Liz Cheney, but what President Trump said, if you listen to the entire ‘Meet the Press’ interview, is he wants everyone who he puts in the key positions of leadership … to apply the law equally to everybody.”

“Now,” Miller continued, “that means if you’re somebody who’s committed some very serious crimes, who’s committed very serious felonies, who’s, for example, confidential information and direct violation of laws that are in place, well, then obviously that sets you up for different things, but as far as the politics aspect, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he’s gonna leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.