The outgoing Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering filing charges against another 200 people related to the peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, even as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to pardon many of the J6’ers.
As Politico reports, the DOJ released data on Monday detailing the potential further charges, including unproven allegations of assault. Charges have already been filed against 1,583 people who were involved in the peaceful protest, including 600 charged with felonies. Roughly 180 J6 defendants have been charged with carrying a weapon onto Capitol grounds, while another 153 have been charged with destruction of government property.
For the last four years, the DOJ has been releasing monthly statistics on the J6 charges, which some say constitute the largest federal prosecution in American history. But Monday’s announcement marks the first, and presumably the last, time that it has released information on cases where charges have not yet been filed. The move is widely seen as an act of defiance against the incoming 47th president, who has vowed to pardon as many J6’ers as possible on his first day in office.
Currently, about 1,100 J6 defendants have already been convicted and have faced sentencing, including 700 who have either completed their prison sentences or were not incarcerated at all. But another 300 cases where charges have been filed have not yet gone to trial or a plea deal; 180 of these cases involve felony charges.
However, DOJ prosecutors have also claimed, with no evidence, that they declined to bring charges against as many as 400 J6 participants despite the FBI recommending them for prosecution.
“Because of this exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” said DOJ prosecutors in the update on Monday, “the typical charged January 6 rioter committed multiple federal crimes.”
The overwhelming majority of January 6th participants did not engage in any violence whatsoever, and were in fact let into the building by Capitol Police who opened the doors for them. The cases have widely stemmed from charges of “disruption of an official proceeding” as well as trespassing charges on Capitol grounds. As such, many have accused the prosecutions of being a form of entrapment, and have thus advocated for mass pardons in order to right the wrongs that were committed against thousands of peaceful American citizens.
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