GOP lawmaker ridiculed for proposing new laws to 'lock up' Trump enemies after Durham report

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) proposed new laws to criminalize actions that special counsel John Durham decided not to prosecute.

Then-attorney general William Barr appointed Durham to investigate the origins of a federal probe of Donald Trump's ties to Russia - but his four year investigation secured only one criminal conviction on a minor offense.

But, despite concluding that the federal investigation should have been instigated, he declined to bring any charges in connection with it.

He notes in his report's introduction, "Not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense."

"[The law] does not always make a person’s bad judgment, even horribly bad judgment, standing alone, a crime,” Durham added.

Crenshaw, however, disagreed and proposed unspecified statutes that would impose prison terms for investigators who examined the former president's dealings with Russia during his 2016 campaign.

"I’ve never been a reactive 'lock ‘em up' type," Crenshaw tweeted, echoing Trump's attack against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton. "But this Durham report is a lock ‘em up moment. We should be looking for statutes that apply to these egregious violations of public trust. If they don’t exist, it’s time we create them so it never happens again."

A number of commenters called out Crenshaw's reasoning as flawed.

"Wow, they ought to appoint a special prosecutor to look into this and decide if anyone can or should be indicted," said Princeton University history professor Kevin Kruse. "I think John Durham is free now. See what he thinks?"

"He was literally appointed to do EXACTLY what you described and didn’t because there weren’t any crimes!" added political strategist Fred Wellman. "You keep finding new ways to debase yourself. They already changed the policies he recommended but you don’t care about that because it won’t get you on Fox."

"Who specifically do you think should be locked up?" tweeted blogger and journalist Matt Yglesias.

"Durham's whole job was to 'look for statutes that apply' and prosecute violations," said Nicholas Grossman, an international relations professor at the University of Illinois. "He looked for 4 years and found none. That settles it. I don't think Crenshaw is this stupid. Apparently he lacks integrity, and would rather lie to, mislead, and string along people who trust him."