In connection with the riots that took place on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering indicting more than 1,000 additional people.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department sent a letter to Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the District Court for the District of Columbia informing her that the court should be prepared to take on 700 to 1,200 additional defendants, according to Bloomberg, which reviewed the letter and reported it first on Wednesday. About 900 people were being charged by the DOJ at the time.
Since then, there has been a substantial increase in the number of arrests made by the DOJ, which is now up to roughly 1,000. According to the department, the number of remaining cases is approximately equal to the number of individuals that officials estimate entered the US Capitol during the riot, which is somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 people.
There has been a strain on DOJ resources, federal public defender’s offices, and the courts due to the high number of arrests and prosecutions.
“In the months and years to come, the FBI Washington Field Office will continue to partner with U.S. attorney’s offices across the country to bring to justice those who attempted to use violence to substitute their will over the will of the people,” David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, said in a January statement.
The statute of limitations for most federal crimes is five years from the date of the offense.
The news of the October letter was released comes just days after Fox News host Tucker Carlson received 41,000 hours of footage of the Capitol on January 6th. Carlson broadcast some of the video he obtained earlier this month, showing the crowd inside of the U.S. Capitol. The Fox News host challenged the portrayal of what happened that day by the House January 6 Committee and the media.
“A small percentage of them were hooligans. But the overwhelming majority weren’t. They were peaceful. They were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists – they were sightseers,” Carlson said.
In the past few days, defense attorneys representing clients charged with crimes related to the January 6th events have had access to most of the footage provided to Carlson. It may be difficult for defense teams to view video thoroughly because of its enormous volume.
“Gov. gives me 14,000 hours of video and says ‘Your client is captured on that video.’ Are you suggesting I need to watch video 24 hours a day for 583 days in order to do my job?” William Shipley, who is representing the “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley in his trial over January 6, said in a recent post on Twitter.
A report released by the FBI in January said that it had compiled and reviewed more than 30,000 files of video footage that had been retrieved from law enforcement sources, cell phones, and other sources. There are nine terabytes of information in the files, and viewing it all would require at least 361 days if it is played continuously for 24 hours a day.
As we reported earlier, Biden’s DOJ was hit with brutal news after Tucker Carlson aired the unseen January 6 “insurrection” footage.
As the House and its then-Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had been given the task of investigating the events of the day it seems that their “investigation” did not run very deep, and may have been slanted or manipulated.
After releasing the 41,000 hours of footage to the top-rated news host, McCarthy was questioned on his decision to do so, in which he defended the release.
“Do you regret giving him this footage so he could whitewash the events of that day?” one reporter asked the California Republican. McCarthy responded by citing “transparency” as a major reason why he gave Fox News first access.
“I said at the very beginning – transparency. And so what I want to produce for everybody is exactly what I said, that people can actually look at it and see what’s gone on that day,” McCarthy noted. “Each person can come up with their own conclusion [about the footage], but what I just want to make sure is I had transparency,” he added.
During his program, Carlson called out a number of people — members of the House Jan. 6 Committee, hand-selected by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi — as well as Biden administration officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland is a liar. He just lied about something that is provably false. No police officers died that day on January 6. None. Not one,” he said.
And Carlson’s comments hold legal weight. An attorney for a prisoner still being held in jail after being arrested on charges related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building has now filed a motion with the Justice Department following Carlson’s airing of the video footage.
“We just filed a motion in USA v RYAN TAYLOR NICHOLS to prevent the Government from advancing the false narrative that police were killed by protestors on J6,” attorney Joseph McBride tweeted on Friday, adding: “NO MORE LIES.”
