MOSCOW (Sputnik) – US President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that he would not seek to settle scores with his political opponents once he took office.
«I’m not looking to go back into the past … Retribution will be through success,» Trump said in an interview with NBC News.
Trump described US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the probe into his alleged role in the Capitol riot of 2021 as «very corrupt,» adding that the members of the committee that examined the January 6 attack were «political thugs» that «should go to jail.» But he added he would not specifically ask the FBI and the Justice Department to punish them, although he said he believed law enforcement agencies should look into them.
The president-elect reaffirmed his plans to carry out mass deportation of undocumented migrants and eliminate birthright citizenship, a constitutional provision that that guarantees US citizenship to all children born in the US regardless of the nationality of their parents.
Trump also pledged to pardon those convicted of federal offenses for their role in the January 6 protest, arguing that many of them were being mistreated in prisons.
«These people are living in hell,» he said.
The pardon will be issued on the day he enters office, the president-elect vowed.
