DOJ makes clear it wants in on January 6th Committee investigation
Even as the January 6th Committee has moved forward with its probe in semi-transparent fashion, and the DOJ has moved forward with its own probe with only occasional details leaking out, one question has remained. At what point would these two probes start coalescing into one?
Now we’re starting to get our answer. The DOJ has asked the January 6th Committee for transcripts of all of its witness interviews, according to a new report from the New York Times. Notably, this request happened nearly a month ago – the latest instance of details about the DOJ’s January 6th probe only surfacing long after the DOJ has made any given move.
Up to now, the DOJ and January 6th Committee have been carrying out separate investigations. With the DOJ having empaneled a 1/6 grand jury against Trump world in January, and having already targeted several witnesses. But now the DOJ clearly wants to augment the testimony and evidence it’s amassed, by adding the committee’s evidence and testimony to the mix.
Why does this matter? For one thing, the DOJ can’t require criminal targets to testify against themselves to a grand jury. But some folks in Trump world have surely testified to the January 6th Committee, in order to avoid potential contempt of Congress charges, without realizing they were DOJ criminal targets. Now the DOJ gets to use their own testimony against them while building criminal cases against them.
Even witnesses who are not criminal targets may have been more willing to open up to the January 6th Committee, because it’s not a criminal proceeding, than they were when they testified to the DOJ’s grand jury. Now the DOJ gets to compare the testimony that any given witness gave in the two different arenas, and use that as well.
The DOJ still has to build comprehensive enough criminal cases against Trump world members such that a trial jury will find them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, even as the January 6th Committee merely has to convince the court of public opinion that any given person is probably guilty. So it’ll take the DOJ longer to build its criminal cases and bring indictments, whereas the committee is now at a point where it can just dump everything out there at once during its upcoming public hearings. But it is now 100% clear that the DOJ is indeed criminally targeting Trump world over January 6th, and has been for some time. So much for the DOJ doing “nothing.”
