Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich went on Fox News over the weekend and threatened members of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Even in the language he used, not just the position he took, Gingrich made clear who rules his world.

“You’re gonna have a Republican majority in the House, a Republican majority in the Senate,” he said on Sunday Morning Futures. “And all these people who’ve been so tough and so mean and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every email.”

”So tough and so mean and so nasty”? Gingrich might as well have painted his face orange before busting out that line, it’s such a direct imitation of what Donald Trump must be ranting to everyone who will listen in the Mar-a-Lago buffet line. But Gingrich wasn’t just threatening subpoenas.

“I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down,” Gingrich said. “The wolves are gonna find out they’re now sheep, and they’re the ones who are, in fact, I think, going to face a real risk of going to jail for the kind of laws that they’re breaking.”

Breaking laws? By investigating a bloody attack on the seat of government intended to stop Congress from doing its duty by certifying an election? This is the Republican position now: investigating crimes committed in support of Donald Trump is itself a crime. And Gingrich is not just some blast from the Republican past. He’s advising House Republican leaders in the runup to 2022.

Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the Republicans on the select committee, responded. Cheney took a serious tone:

Gingrich has been working on bringing the U.S. to this point for decades, though—and for most of that time, Cheney’s father Dick was right on board with it. 

Kinzinger went for mockery:

But as ridiculous a figure as Gingrich is, as ridiculous as the threat may seem to be, this is where the Republican Party is: fiercely opposing any investigation of a coup attempt by its leader. That in itself is extraordinarily dangerous.