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Democrats who investigated Trump say they expect to face arrest, retaliation if he wins presidency
Some members of Congress who led the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot acknowledge they’ve talked to their families about their safety — and the risk of their arrest — if Trump wins a second term in November.
In a series of interviews with CBS News, House Democrats who helped lead the House Jan. 6 select committee and some of the police witnesses who testified before it predicted they’d be targeted for retribution by a future Trump administration.
Trump raised the prospect of future arrests of some of the Jan. 6 committee participants in a social media post on March 18. Referring to the panel’s vice chair, former Rep. Liz Cheney, Trump wrote, “She should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!”
“My wife and I have had conversations about what life would look like if the worst happened,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who was one of seven Democrats on the Jan. 6 select committee. Speaking to CBS News near the House chamber between votes last week, Schiff said, “You can’t avoid the conversations about ‘What if?’ And I have to think about my own personal safety.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus and was a member of the Jan. 6 committee, told reporters last week that he takes Trump’s threat of jailing seriously. But Aguilar, noting the proximity of the Washington, D.C., jail to the U.S. Capitol, smiled and wryly noted, “My family has told me that they’re going to come to D.C. either way — and they’ll visit me, no matter where I am.”
“One of the things that I observed during our Jan. 6 committee work was that when Trump says something, he intends to do it,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, another California Democrat who helped lead the panel.
“I take that lesson to heart,” she told CBS News. “When he says various things, I think that’s what he means he’ll do.”
She acknowledged she has been harassed by some Trump supporters.
“He’s going to weaponize the Department of Justice…and use it to go after people like myself,” former Washington, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone told CBS News. Fanone testified at a 2021 public hearing of the committee and has been an outspoken Trump critic, accusing him of employing authoritarian rhetoric.
“He’s telling us exactly what he plans on doing,” Fanone said.
Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who also testified before the select committee, told CBS News, “Trump means what he says. Anybody who has testified against him, or spoken out in a public capacity, should be worried.” Dunn, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for a U.S. House seat in Maryland, said the threat of arrest “is a little scary to think about, but you have to continue to do the right thing.”
The Trump campaign did not respond directly to questions about whether Trump intends to pursue arrests of the Jan. 6 committee members.
“Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and the Corrupt Democrats on the sham January 6th Committee have lied to the American public for years, denied key witnesses from testifying to the truth, and covered up evidence that proved President Trump, nor any of his supporters, ever engaged in an alleged ‘insurrection.’ Their entire narrative is a lie and Americas know that Joe Biden is the true threat to democracy,” a Trump spokeswoman said in a statement to CBS News.
Trump’s March 18 social media post prompted criticism from scholars who study the rhetoric and practices of authoritarian regimes.
“This sort of post is not what you want to see out of your political leaders in a healthy democracy,” said Erica Frantz, a political science professor at Michigan State University. Frantz, who specializes in authoritarian politics, told CBS News that calls by political leaders “to jail their political opponents are red flags in terms of potential slides to authoritarianism.”
Frantz said when political figures talk about jailing some critics, it can have a chilling effect on others.
“It’s intended to invoke fear among them and deter them from speaking out against Trump,” she said. “The more that critics are silenced, the more leaders with authoritarian ambitions are able to get away with their power grab.”
The select committee executed a high-profile investigation of Trump that included a series of nationally televised public hearings. The committee spoke with hundreds of witnesses, including Trump’s top White House aides, as it reviewed his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The committee voted to refer criminal charges to the Justice Department for Trump and accused him of threatening the future of democracy and inciting the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
The committee was disbanded in late 2022, after Republicans won control of the House. Two of its members lost their campaigns for reelection, including Cheney. Two others retired from the House.
Some committee members have reported being targeted by threats and harassment by Trump supporters.
One senior U.S. House aide said a presidential candidate’s threats to jail legislators for public speech and legislative work also run afoul of the Speech and Debate Clause, which protect the independence of Congress.
In remarks to reporters last week, Aguilar said Trump’s ongoing rhetoric raises the risk of continued harassment, threats and danger to public officials. Aguilar said, “Trump wants to act like those dictators he hosts at Mar-a-Lago. That’s difficult rhetoric, and it’s not anything that any of us, any of the members under this Dome take lightly.”
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
LEAH MILLIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Chris Wright, a campaign donor and fossil fuel executive, to serve as energy secretary in his upcoming, second administration.
CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Wright is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking, a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market.
Trump also said in a statement Saturday that Wright will serve on the newly-created National Energy Council, which will be chaired by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s selection for secretary of the Interior.
Burgum will oversee a panel that crosses all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, Trump said in a previous statement.
Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration.
Wright also has criticized what he calls a “top-down” approach to climate by liberal and left-wing groups and said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.”
Consideration of Wright to head the administration’s energy department won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm.
Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term.
Hamm helped organize an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April where Trump reportedly asked industry leaders and lobbyists to donate $1 billion to Trump’s campaign, with the expectation that Trump would curtail environmental regulations if re-elected.
The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. The agency is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons, oversees 17 national research laboratories and approves natural gas exports, as well as ensuring environmental cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. It also promotes scientific and technological research.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who is expected to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Trump promised bold choices for his Cabinet, and Wright’s nomination delivers.
“He’s s an energy innovator who laid the foundation for America’s fracking boom. After four years of America last energy policy, our country is desperate for a secretary (of energy) who understands how important American energy is to our economy and our national security,″ Barrasso said of Wright, adding: “Wright will help ensure America remains committed to an all-of-the-above energy policy that puts American families first.”
Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a conservative group that supports fossil fuels, said Wright would be “an excellent choice” for Energy secretary. Pyle led Trump’s Energy Department’s transition team in 2016.
Liberty is a major energy industry service provider, with a focus on technology. Wright, who grew up in Colorado, earned undergraduate degree at MIT and did graduate work in electrical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and MIT. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.
