WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to focus on arresting the “most egregious” Jan. 6 rioters — especially those who have committed crimes against law enforcement officers but have not yet been arrested — in the remaining 72 days before President-elect Donald Trump is back in the White House, a law enforcement official told NBC News this week.
Trump is expected to drop the yearlong investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack and has said he would “absolutely” pardon some, if not all, of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol that day, calling them “warriors” . ,” “incredible patriots,” political prisoners, and “hostages.” A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on what rioters Trump would consider pardoning, though the campaign previously said he would pardon the defendants on a “case-by-case basis” on Jan. 6 when he returns to the White House. .”
Given Trump’s stunning election victory, federal prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section received guidance this week on how to proceed in pending cases from Jan. 6, NBC News has learned, including a directive to oppose requests of suspects on January 6 for a postponement. Prosecutors are instructed to argue that there is a public interest in speedy administration of justice and that these cases should be heard in the normal order.
As for new arrests, the law enforcement official said, prosecutors will “focus on the most egregious conduct and cases until the end of the administration’s term.” It is unlikely that there will be any more arrests of suspects in Jan. 6 crimes — such as those who entered the Capitol but did not attack law enforcement — unless a judge has already signed off on those cases, but the crimes will continue, the official said .
Online sleuths who helped the FBI make hundreds of arrests of Capitol rioters told NBC News they have identified and proven to the agency 75 people currently listed as wanted on the FBI’s Capitol Violence webpage for assault on a federal officer or for assault on the media, both felonies.
Federal officials should pick up the pace to get those very things across the finish line before Trump walks through the Lower West Tunnel — where his supporters battled law enforcement in a battle described by several officers as “medieval” — to take the oath of office to be taken on January 20, 2025.
“Just over 1 a day,” one of the online “incitement hunters” who has dedicated hours of their lives to tracking down the Trump supporters who brutally attacked law enforcement officers that day, told NBC News. “Place your bets!”
“We didn’t spend the last four years tracking down these criminals just so dozens of them could avoid prosecution because half the country are fucking idiots,” said another online sleuth. “Our work continues, as does that of the DOJ.”
Existing cases against suspects from January 6 are expected to continue with additional trials, sentencing hearings and plea deal hearings set to take place next week.
The FBI has arrested more than 1,560 suspects to date. Prosecutors have secured more than 1,100 convictions and more than 600 defendants have received prison sentences ranging from days in prison to 22 years in prison.
This week, a rioter who attacked law enforcement officers and smashed the windows of the House Speaker’s Lobby moments before a fellow rioter was shot — and then became the target of a conspiracy theory that suggested he was a federal informant — was sentenced to eight years in prison. federal prison.
A former assistant U.S. attorney in the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section told NBC News this week that prosecutors are proud of the work they have done but are understandably nervous about the future and demoralized. Many prosecutors got involved in these cases because of their desire to uphold the rule of law and defend democracy, the former assistant U.S. attorney said, but the cases became about vindicating the victims, who are mainly police officers.
“You spend some time understanding the hell the police officers have gone through and watching the body-worn cameras where you are in their shoes and you see people physically assaulting them and taking cheap shots at them and shooting them from behind hitting, and making racist statements.” “He’s talking to them for hours as they stood there trying to protect the Capitol and the people inside, and the cases became about the victims,” he said. “So the idea that people who committed these crimes against those victims, people who assaulted those officers, would be pardoned, we really hope people think twice before they do that.”
The prospect of presidential pardons for people who have attacked law enforcement is “pretty demoralizing,” the former assistant U.S. attorney said.
“The idea of the most powerful person in the country saying it’s okay is okay with the person who sprayed them with bear spray, or hit them with a hockey stick, or dragged them down stairs, or, in Michael’s case Fanone, groped them in the neck and caused them to have a heart attack, or in the case of Daniel Hodges, locked them in between doors and kept squeezing them in between the doors while they while Hodges screamed for his life, that part of it is, it’s so miserable,” he said.
Prosecutors are extremely proud of the work they have done and take comfort in the idea that in courtrooms — where facts, not political rhetoric, determine the outcome of jury trials — American citizens who faced the real evidence did the right thing, the first said prosecutor.
“The evidence is overwhelming, and the officers’ testimony was overwhelming,” he said. “Time and time again, when people are confronted with the evidence, it points in the same direction.”
Former Capitol Police Sergeant. Aquilino Gonell, an immigrant Dominican Republican and military veteran who wrote a book about his experiences coming to America, learning English, serving in the military and then being repeatedly attacked by his compatriots at the Capitol on Jan. 6, remains in sentencing hearings for the criminals who attacked him. His injuries from the attack forced him to retire in 2022; he is in his mid-forties.
Gonell, who campaigned on behalf of Kamala Harris, said he won’t let the Jan. 6 story fade away even after Trump takes office.
“Whether he pardons them or not, it doesn’t change what they did and what I went through,” Gonell said. “They… they can’t erase that history.”
“If you take Trump’s name out of the equation, and if you remove who they supported, would the people who voted for him be okay with what happened? Would they support me?” Gonell asked. “And that’s the question: it creates moral injury.”
“It’s not a good feeling,” he continued, “when you feel like no one cares what happened that day.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
