President Donald Trump said on Monday that he's asked his attorney general to look into whether the federal government can charge "paid agitators" under federal statutes.
Trump was asked during a news conference in the Oval Office about an incident that occurred last week, where protesters shouted at him and members of his cabinet while they dined at a local Washington, D.C. restaurant. Videos surfaced online of multiple protesters shouting "Free Palestine" at the president and members of his cabinet who attended the dinner.
During the news conference, Trump said he's asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to "look into" charging protesters and agitators under federal racketeering statutes.
"I'm doing a great job for peace in the Middle East," Trump said. "I should get a lot of awards for that, with the Abraham Accords and everything else. But a woman just stood up and started screaming, and she got booed out of the place, too."
"I went there to show how safe, and it was safe, this woman was just a mouthpiece," he continued. "She was a paid agitator, and you have a lot of them, and I've asked Pam [Bondi] to look into that in terms of bringing RICO cases against them. Criminal RICO."
RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law that has frequently been utilized to dismantle organized crime operations.
"They should be put in jail," Trump said. "What they're doing to this country is really subversive."