Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) doesn’t mince words in a new column arguing that Donald Trump deserves prison time for his actions after the 2020 election.
Trump was indicted this week in an alleged conspiracy to overturn the election and remain in power, which ultimately led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“He wanted violence. He wanted chaos,” Walsh wrote for The Daily Beast. “He wanted his supporters to be so damn pissed off that they would use violence to keep him in office.”
According to the indictment, one Justice Department official was prepared to use the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against Americans if they took the streets to protest Trump’s attempts to remain in power.
“Please don’t breeze past this fact: The former President of the United States believed violence was ultimately how he could execute his attempted coup,” Walsh wrote. “He incited that violence for months, and he exploited that violence on Jan. 6.”
Walsh called the mob’s violence of that day “the traitor’s final play.”
Trump waited hours to finally ask his supporters to end the attack, watching the events unfold on TV with approval.
“People have long been confused about why Trump just sat there in the White House all afternoon, completely unperturbed by what was happening,” Walsh wrote. “There should be no confusion: This is what he wanted. This was the plan.”
Walsh called it “bad enough” that Trump refused to concede the election and attempted to block the peaceful transition of power.
“But it’s traitorous that he relied on the threat of violence rather than concede he lost a free and fair election in the United States of America,” the former lawmaker wrote as he reached an inescapable conclusion: “Trump’s ass belongs in jail.”
Walsh was every bit as blunt during a CNN interview, saying his former political party had turned into a “cult,” with voters who are now “completely radicalized” for Trump.
See more of that discussion below.