Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) released the following statement after former President Donald Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury:

“Never before in American history has the party in power targeted a former president with criminal charges. Such an unprecedented step should not be taken lightly. But the left-wing prosecutor in New York City reportedly has charged President Trump with a convoluted legal theory already rejected by his predecessor and the Department of Justice. I hope that the courts dismiss the indictment as a matter of law, and I urge the prosecutors pursuing President Trump to carefully consider the harm caused to our republic if flimsy charges against former presidents become a new common practice in our politics.”

GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is once again dragging out one of his favorite lines: The United States, Cotton believes, simply needs more prisoners.

On Wednesday, in response to a report about rising homicide rates, Cotton tweeted that the U.S. “absolutely has an under-incarceration problem.” It was the second time he posted to social media about it in 24 hours.

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2 million people in prison and nearly 700 out of every 100,000 people in jail as of 2018, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

“If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem,” Cotton said in a speech at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank in May 2016. In 2015, the murder rate was 4.9 murders per every 100,000 people, according to FBI statistics—one of the lowest rates on record.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88n44p/tom-cotton-will-not-shut-up-about-putting-more-people-in-prison