House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik made headlines earlier this week when she appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and failed to commit to certifying the 2024 election results. That was not, however, the only unsettling part of the New York Republican’s on-air appearance.
Asked if she stood by the comments that she made on the House floor calling Jan. 6 a “truly tragic day for America,” Stefanik also said, “I have concerns about the treatment of Jan. 6 hostages.”
“Hostages,” of course, is the same word Donald Trump has been using in recent months to describe people serving prison sentences for participating in the Jan. 6 riot.
By any sane measure, describing these convicted and suspected felons as “hostages” is utterly bonkers. As my colleague Ja’han Jones explained this week, hostages “are people seized by hostile parties, typically in exchange for some sort of ransom. The incarcerated Jan. 6 rioters, on the other hand, have been legally arrested and are facing accountability for things they did — in support of a violent, antidemocratic mob that raided and ravaged the Capitol with lawmakers inside.”
“Calling them hostages,” Ja’han added, “is like saying a bank robber becomes a hostage when taken to prison upon conviction.”
Quite right. I’d just add that for Trump and Stefanik to use such a label is a profound insult to the United States and our system of justice. Gangs, terrorists, and other dangerous criminals take hostages. American law enforcement, in contrast, takes suspects into custody, applies due process, and subjects them to legal adjudication.
As an NBC News report explained this week, “In contrast to the civilians abducted by terrorists overseas, every single Jan. 6 rioter currently being held behind bars is there either because they were found or pleaded guilty, or because a federal judge — after hearing evidence from both prosecutors and the defendants — ordered them held pretrial due to the…
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