The pace of FBI arrests and the opening of new Jan. 6, 2021, criminal cases increased so much in late 2023 and early 2024 that District of Columbia federal courts could bend under the weight.
In the past two months, 93 people have been arrested and charged, according to Department of Justice (DOJ) reports.
At the current rate, some 445 new cases could hit the docket in 2024—more than in 2022 and 2023, according to one estimate.
In total, up to March 6, at least 1,358 people had been arrested by the FBI and criminally charged by the DOJ for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
William Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who has represented more than 50 Jan. 6 defendants, said he noticed an upswing in cases starting in September 2023.
“Every day, every day you see two or three more,” Mr. Shipley said. “My own view: It’s a political operation. Just my personal opinion. I think the Department of Justice, the Biden administration, is committed to continuing to keep this story front and center for purposes of the campaign.”
Mr. Shipley said there was a six- to eight-month pause in arrests and prosecutions starting in early 2023 due to the strain Jan. 6 cases put on D.C. federal courts.
“You’ve got a five-year statute of limitations; you don’t need to arrest everybody and prosecute them in the first 18 months, and there was a pause,” Mr. Shipley said. “There was a clear period of time where there weren’t arrests of any significant number happening.”
The states with the most arrests are Florida (129), Texas (104), Pennsylvania (93), California (90), New York (80), Ohio (71), and Virginia (67). Together, they account for nearly 50 percent of all Jan. 6 defendants, according to research by Mr. Rugh.
About 63 percent of Jan. 6 criminal cases have been adjudicated and defendants sentenced, according to DOJ figures. About 58 percent of defendants were given jail or prison time, 19 percent received home detention, and another 3.5 percent received a combination.
Of the 769 defendants who pleaded guilty to charges, 69 percent did so for misdemeanors and 31 percent for felonies, the DOJ reports.
Some 1,276 defendants were charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and 486 were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers.
Perfect Conviction Rate
Perhaps the most remarkable Jan. 6 statistic comes from jury boxes in the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington.Every one of the more than 100 Jan. 6 defendants who chose a jury trial were found guilty of at least some of the charges. That’s a perfect conviction rate for federal prosecutors, a statistic cited repeatedly in change-of-venue motions. All of those motions have been denied.
Mr. Shipley told The Epoch Times that the DOJ’s historical conviction rate in the District of Columbia is about 65 percent, lower than the 90 percent that is “more typical” in other federal court districts.
He said, “The way the question needs to be framed today and put before the judges again is, ‘How many trials and how high a conviction rate is necessary before the judges start to consider maybe it’s not the evidence but the jurors?’”
District of Columbia jurors seated on Jan. 6 cases “are simply not open to listening to explanations from defendants who testify, or accept any of the ‘progress’ against the evidence made by defense counsel in cross-examination,” Mr. Shipley said.
The DOJ has stated since Jan. 6 that finding, arresting, and prosecuting those who were at the U.S. Capitol is a top priority, carried out at “unprecedented speed and scale.” The FBI has conducted the largest investigation in its history in response to Jan. 6.
Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, paints Jan. 6 in the dramatic tones of warfare as he pledges prosecutors will continue their work unabated into 2024 and beyond.
“In scenes often reminiscent of a medieval battle, officers engaged in hand-to-hand combat with members of the invading force, many of whom carried dangerous weapons including firearms, chemical sprays, tasers, stabbing weapons, and makeshift weapons across the Capitol [grounds] and in the Capitol itself,” Graves said on Jan. 6, 2024.
“[Jan. 6, 2021, was] likely the largest single-day mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history,” Mr. Graves said.
The preamble to the DOJ’s monthly statistical update on Jan. 6 cases states, “The Department of Justice’s resolve to hold accountable those who committed crimes on January 6, 2021, has not, and will not, wane.”
Mr. Shipley said the pace of arrests helps perpetuate the idea that supporters of former President Donald Trump are a threat to society.
“They want to continue to have that argument that some portion of the political opposition is actually a criminal element,” he said. “They use the branding of all these J6 defendants to say: ‘See that sliver of the MAGA movement? They’re insurrectionists, they’re foes of democracy.’”
Prosecution Machine
Not even three weeks after Jan. 6, the DOJ named senior prosecutors to go after the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other alleged “white nationalist” groups, according to internal documents obtained by Judicial Watch.A document dated Jan. 25, 2021, named assistant U.S. attorneys to investigate and prosecute white nationalists and militias—the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, founder of the Oath Keepers who in 2023 was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges, was named as an early target in a DOJ list obtained by Judicial Watch.
“I’m not at all surprised that I was added to the target list on Jan. 11, 2021, long before there could have been any actual substantive investigation into me,” Mr. Rhodes told The Epoch Times in an email. “Goes to show that ‘show me the man, I’ll show you the crime’ was exactly their M.O.”
Mr. Rhodes said the media set the tone for such a focus on the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
“The fixation on the Oath Keepers came first from the mass media, which immediately in the hours and days after the Trump supporters entered the Capitol began to highlight the row of Oath Keepers walking up the steps and breathlessly calling it a ‘military stack formation’ and alleging that the Oath Keepers were leading the crowd,” Mr. Rhodes said.
Rapid Indictment Team
According to the DOJ draft plan, a branch would be established for “Priority Incidents and Subjects,” including the Jan. 6 pipe bombs, the shooting of Ashli Babbitt outside the Speaker’s Lobby, the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, use-of-force allegations against Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers, and assaults on federal officers by rioters.Another branch was to be established for priority investigations and rapid indictments and prosecution of Jan. 6 subjects. A branch would be established for “Advanced Litigation Support,” including mass data collection, discovery for defendants, and technology support to “store, process, analyze, and produce the unprecedented amount of data.”
“These documents detail a troubling and unprecedented deployment of federal resources to prosecute Americans caught up in the January 6 disturbance,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The documents seem to describe a massive political and spy operation masquerading as a law enforcement operation.”
Treniss Evans, a former Jan. 6 defendant and founder of the legal advocacy group Condemned USA, said the prosecution efforts are aimed squarely at harming President Trump.
“These people are sick and only focus on this to serve the goals of tearing down President Trump and striking fear into the hearts of supporters to silence our voices,” Mr. Evans told The Epoch Times in a statement. “I will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs in suits and robes and their chains will be heavy when justice is served.
‘Profoundly Disturbing’
Defense attorney Brad Geyer said the case statistics are “profoundly disturbing.”“It seems the government is foolishly doubling down on its diversion of Department of Justice resources away from historical enforcement areas like border security, human trafficking, corruption, and fraud in procurement, grants, health care, big pharma, research and science,” Mr. Geyer told The Epoch Times in a statement.
“A decade ago, zealous enforcement in these areas was considered to be highly correlated to continued American prosperity, while today, the Department of Justice ramps up interstate roundups of parading grandmas that attended a First-Amendment-protected demonstration that went awry.”
Former FBI special agent Steve Friend said the arrest projections are in line with longstanding FBI plans.
“These numbers are consistent with what my supervisors told me when I made protected whistleblower disclosures about the FBI’s departures from investigative procedures for January 6th cases,“ Mr. Friend told The Epoch Times. ”In August 2022, FBI Jacksonville management told me that the bureau intended to arrest at least 1,000 more individuals who never entered the Capitol.”
Trouble on the Horizon
When the Supreme Court said on Dec. 13, 2023, that it would take up Jan. 6 defendant Joseph W. Fischer’s challenge to the use of 18 U.S. Code Section 1512(c)(2) to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants for obstructing Congress’s tallying of Electoral College votes, it was an earth-shaking development.Many legal observers have said they think the high court will strike down the DOJ’s novel use of a post-Enron corporate fraud statute to lodge felony charges against 350 defendants and counting. Oral arguments are set for April 16, with a decision likely by late June.
That development has already led to delayed sentencings and the release of some Jan. 6, 2021, convicts from prison.
A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled that sentencing enhancements for interfering with the “administration of justice” couldn’t be applied to the tallying of Electoral College votes by a joint session of Congress.
In his motion, Mr. Reffitt argued that without the administration of justice enhancement, his sentencing guidelines would have called for 30 to 37 months in prison—substantially lower than the 87-month sentence he received. He has been in custody for nearly 38 months. District Judge Dabney Friedrich ordered the DOJ to respond to Mr. Reffitt’s motion by March 7.
Under U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines, judges can enhance jail time for interfering with the administration of justice.
The Court of Appeals upheld Mr. Brock’s conviction but remanded the case back to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., for resentencing on the obstruction charge.
The appeals court ruling could affect 100 Jan. 6 defendants who had the enhancement applied to their sentences. According to Mr. Shipley, it could cut the sentences for many defendants by half or more.
