The DOJ just escalated the January 6th criminal charges – and it should have Trump world running scared
When the DOJ only decided to indict and arrest two of the four Trump advisers who have (thus far) been referred for contempt of Congress, it set off a lot of panicked defeatism among those who are convinced that the “DOJ is doing nothing” and Trump and his people have “gotten away with it all.” But back in the real world, these narratives simply don’t line up with the facts.
For one thing, Mark Meadows is likely going down for a whole host of election related crimes which will make any contempt charges look tiny in comparison. Just as importantly, when other Trump advisers like Roger Stone and Alex Jones decided to plead the Fifth to the January 6th Committee, it was for good reason – they expect to go down for underlying crimes, and they didn’t want to further incriminate themselves.
So it’s no surprise that the DOJ escalated its January 6th criminal charges today by hitting five Proud Boys leaders with ten new charges each, including the very serious charge of seditious conspiracy. This includes Enrique Tarrio, an associate of Trump world figures like Stone.
Tarrio is already being held without bail while awaiting trial – and these new charges make clear that he’s headed to prison for much of the rest of his life unless he flips on everyone in Trump world. Tarrio already previously flipped on his own Proud Boys group, in a past effort to avoid prison. So it’s reasonable to expect that, once enough pressure is applied, he’ll strongly consider flipping again.
This is how the DOJ gets Trump’s own top advisers to flip on him. It spent all that time last year flipping its way up through the Capitol attackers so it could build overwhelming criminal cases against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders. It’s since flipped some of them against Trump world. Now it’s bringing escalating criminal charges against the rest of them, in order to motivate them to flip on Trump world as well. Once Trump’s advisers realize they’re not getting out of this, some of them will end up flipping on Trump. This is how the process works. So much for the DOJ doing “nothing.”
