WASHINGTON — Four years after Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in support of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, members of Congress will face heavy security Monday as they certify Trump’s 2024 election victory, putting the first president to face a federal crime is assured Criminal charges will return to the White House within two weeks.
On January 20, Trump will walk through the Lower West Tunnel – the site of the worst violence of the attack on January 6, 2021 – to take the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States. Trump, who himself faced four felony charges in connection with Jan. 6 and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, has pledged to pardon an untold number of defendants on Jan. 6 when he takes office. (Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped the charges against Trump after his election, with his team writing that while it stood by the case and while the evidence against Trump was strong, the dismissal was necessary in light of the government’s long-standing position Justice Department that the Constitution prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.)
But the details of Trump’s plans are uncertain, even as the final days of President Joe Biden’s term tick by and even as the January 6 defendants involved in the January 6 investigation agree, it is clear that Trump is not aware of the details of the cases.
“Even people who are familiar with the daily J6 prosecution, it’s hard to keep track of what’s happening,” a Trump ally previously told NBC News, adding that Trump had to make a “very succinct and compelling argument for this pardon to develop. “
More than 1,580 defendants have been charged and about 1,270 convicted in a sprawling investigation that has resulted in more than 660 prison sentences, according to statistics released Monday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The prison sentences range from a few days behind bars to 22 years in prison, a sentence imposed on former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy. Hundreds of other Jan. 6 suspects have been sentenced to probation, most of whom were convicted of low-level offenses such as unlawful parading.
In September, before Trump won the election, the federal government declared the certification of the Electoral College a national special security event, increasing the level of security at the Capitol. While Trump’s victory all but removed the threat that a mob would storm the Capitol on Monday, the administration went ahead with the original plan and implemented strict security measures that will remain in place as law enforcement agencies face major upcoming events, including events celebrating of the late president. President Jimmy Carter as he lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda, as well as Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
On Saturday morning, about 36 hours before a snowstorm was expected to hit Washington, Capitol workers installed additional layers of tall fencing around the Capitol grounds, including on the West Front, that Trump supporters had taken over four years ago during the attack on the Capitol. .
The scene outside the Capitol in Washington on Saturday.
Biden on Sunday implored lawmakers to speak honestly about the attack on the Capitol, which injured more than 140 police officers and left several law enforcement officers dead, during an event with newly elected Democratic lawmakers.
“Now it is your duty to tell the truth, to remember what happened and not to let January 6 be rewritten,” Biden said. “It is one of the most difficult days in American history.”
Trump, like many of his fellow Republicans, underwent a sea change in his rhetoric since the January 6 attack, from calling the 2021 Capitol breach a “heinous attack” to describing it as a “day of love’ last year. The effort to rewrite history on Jan. 6 has been helped by numerous conspiracy theories promoted by Trump allies on Capitol Hill, with a federal judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan warning of the “ridiculous” rhetoric used by many prominent Republicans used. politicians and are shocked that such “worthless justifications of criminal activity” have become mainstream.
“The basic premise of our legal system is that truth and justice, law and order, are values of paramount importance and worth protecting, even at great cost,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said last month during a separate hearing on the conviction. “These proceedings and others like them demonstrate that our justice system always works, regardless of the political winds of the day. That’s a message worth sending.”
Police cars block parts of Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol as barricades are set up on the National Mall on Sunday.
Inside the Capitol last week, there were no signs of a plaque that would have been placed on the west side of the Capitol to honor the law enforcement officers who protected lawmakers and the building during the Jan. 6 attack.
Trump, who on Jan. 6 picked a conspiracy theorist, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as his attorney general until Gaetz resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct involving an underage girl, has used outdated talking points when discussing of Jan. 6 cases and said House committee members should “go to jail” on Jan. 6. (Gaetz has denied the allegations.) Trump said the Jan. 6 defendants were subject to “a very dirty system” and that he would “act very quickly” on a Jan. 6 pardon.
Trump has said there “may be some exceptions” to his Jan. 6 pardon “if someone was radical or crazy,” but he did not rule out pardoning people who admitted to assaulting police officers. Trump’s transition team has said pardons will be granted “on a case-by-case basis,” but Trump has said the “vast majority” of Jan. 6 defendants should not be in prison. The U.S. attorney’s office said only eight pretrial suspects remain in jail in Washington, while all other suspects jailed on Jan. 6 are serving post-conviction sentences after confessing and pleading guilty to their crimes in court pleaded. juries or judges found evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed the crimes they were accused of.
While more crimes against low-level Jan. 6 defendants seem unlikely in a Trump administration, it is not yet clear how pending cases against people accused of attacking law enforcement officers will be handled. Online “incitement hunters” who have already helped the FBI in hundreds of Jan. 6 cases say more than 200 people suspected of carrying out attacks on law enforcement officers or members of the media have been identified but not yet arrested. They include more than 60 people whose images appear on the FBI website, which says they are wanted for assault.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
