DOJ signals its clear intent to take down high level Capitol attack co-conspirators

| 7:43 pm EDT May 10, 2021
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Whenever there is a federal criminal investigation into a major criminal conspiracy, activists and pundits always complain that it’s not moving quickly enough. That’s understandable. But it’s also not how things work. These kinds of probes have to start at the bottom, and then force those people to flip on those above them, until there’s enough legal proof at the top to indict those who were pulling the strings.

To that end, the Department of Justice has now arrested and/or indicted hundreds of people who physically took part in the January 6th Capitol attack. Of course that’s just the start. Now that a handful of them have begun cutting plea deals, we’ll see the arrests and indictments start to move up the chain. Today the DOJ signaled how intent it is on moving up that chain.

One of the people who allegedly invaded the Capitol is a Trump administration appointee named Federico Klein. He’s already been indicted, but he’s still slowly working his way through the court system. Now the DOJ is emphatically making clear that it wants to cut a plea deal with him.

When prosecutors start bending over backward like this to get one specific person to flip, it’s generally because they believe that person has information about bigger fish in that criminal conspiracy. Given that Klein was a Trump-appointed member of the federal government at the time of the Capitol attack, it’s not difficult to imagine that he would have more inside information and testimony to offer about where the orders to invade came from, than the average Capitol invader who flew in from Oklahoma.

This is a big deal, because it’s how a federal criminal investigation moves up the hierarchy in a massive criminal plot. If Klein accepts the presumably lenient deal he’s being offered, then he gives up someone further up the chain. Then that person flips, and pretty soon the Feds have inside witnesses who can help bring viable criminal charges against any members of Congress who may have been orchestrating the attack from within.

The pace and scope of a federal criminal probe has nothing to do with the impatience of political activists on social media, and everything to do with people cutting plea deals against each other.