Members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are firing back after former Speaker Newt Gingrich said Saturday that panel members could be jailed if Republicans win back control of the House in this year’s midterms.

Gingrich told Fox News on Saturday: "I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down, and the wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep and they're the ones who … I think, face a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws they're breaking." 

Gingrich, a Republican who served as House speaker from 1995-99, did not say which laws be believes the committee members might have broken. 

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair and one of two Republicans on the nine-member panel, responded on Twitter on Sunday, writing: “A former Speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6 attack on our Capitol and our Constitution. This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels.”

Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the other Republican on the committee, responded by posting an animated gif of actor Chris Farley’s angry school bus driver character in the movie “Billy Madison.”

Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., called Gingrich's remarks “weird.”

"That's just bizarre," she told CNN on Sunday. "I think Newt has really lost it. You know, it leaves me speechless. I mean, unless he is assuming that the government does get overthrown and there's no system of justice, just random arrests. I mean, it's just a bizarre statement, and he looks terrible."

Lofgren noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., have both said publicly that former President Donald Trump bore responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, carried out by a mob of his supporters seeking to disrupt certification of Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election. McCarthy has since reversed his position and shifted blame to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arguing she didn’t do enough to protect the building from the rioters.

"We are uncovering a plot, it looks like, to overturn the peaceful transfer of power, to essentially overturn our system of government," Lofgren said. "I think that's pretty serious. And I think most Americans would agree. We're going to do our job despite bizarre threats such as Newt Gingrich's weird comments. And we're going to get all the information, and we're going to make it known to the American people. And we're going to look at what could be changed legislatively. 

“We're a legislative committee,” she added. “We're not going after anybody. We're going after the truth.”

Gingrich’s comments on Fox News echoed what he wrote in an op-ed for Newsweek last week. In it, he compared Democrats to Joseph Stalin, the Castro brothers and others who killed, tortured or imprisoned their rivals.

Gingrich called for Republicans, if they win back the House, to immediately launch the “Select Committee on Congressional Dishonesty and Abuse of Power” to investigate members of the Jan. 6 committee as well as Justice Department officials. 

“This is not about revenge,” he wrote. “This is about reinforcing the principle that in America, political wolves who viciously destroy their fellow Americans—and violate the rule of law to do so—will not be tolerated. This is about restoring the core principles of American self-government.”