As President Joe Biden’s re-election bid picks up steam, so are the efforts to punish participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
One observer suggested it’s a naked political move by Biden to keep negative attention focused on the rioters and, by extension, former President Donald Trump.
The Epoch Times reported on Wednesday that after a months-long lull in apprehensions, perhaps undertaken to give a breather to the court system in Washington, D.C., the FBI has picked up the pace of arrests of Trump supporters who were allegedly involved in the melee.
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“In the past two months, 93 people have been arrested and charged, according to Department of Justice (DOJ) reports,” the Times noted “At the current rate, some 445 new cases could hit the docket in 2024—more than in 2022 and 2023, according to one estimate.”
The Times added that as of Wednesday, some 38 months after the riot, the Justice Department has now arrested and charged at least 1,358 people for J6-related crimes.
The Times added that William Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who has represented more than 50 of the J6 defendants, said increased arrests are political.
“My own view: it’s a political operation,” Shipley told the Times in February.
“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.”
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“They want to continue to have that argument that some portion of the political opposition is actually a criminal element,” he added. “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.’”
Shipley also indicated that politics may be involved in the cases that have been resolved so far.
According to the Times, more than 100 J6 defendants who opted for a jury trial were convicted of at least some charges.
That perfect 100% conviction rate far outpaces what federal prosecutors normally notch in Washington. Overall, the Justice Department’s historical conviction rate is 65% in D.C., which is significantly lower than the 90% typically found in other federal court districts.
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“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?’” said Shipley.
But the government’s success rate may change next month.
In April, the Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether as many as 350 J6 defendants were charged under the wrong statute, one intended to fight corruption and financial crimes in the wake of former energy-industry heavyweight Enron’s fiscal collapse.
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