The DOJ just got what it wanted from the January 6th Committee
Weeks ago, the DOJ asked the January 6th Committee for transcripts of its closed door testimony. At the time, the committee blew it off, either because the committee was concerned about its biggest findings leaking out ahead of its public hearings, or because it was seeking something from the DOJ in return.
Yesterday, the DOJ informed the committee that it needed the testimony transcripts immediately, due to upcoming discovery deadlines. We then saw a ton of hyperbolic doomsday hype from the media and pundit class about how the DOJ’s criminal cases were going to be blown, and we were about to head into total catastrophe.
But of course that’s not how anything works in the real world. This committee, led by these particular politicians, was never going to blow a DOJ criminal case out of stubbornness. So it’s not surprising at all that, according to the New York Times, the committee has begun sharing those testimony transcripts with the DOJ today. There wasn’t going to be a different outcome here.
So now that we can all see that the doomsday hysteria that’s been applied to this story was a bunch of empty hype, we’re left with the actual storyline, which is that the DOJ is aggressive in its intention to bring high level January 6th criminal charges.
People are still asking why the DOJ doesn’t just go interview these witnesses themselves – but that’s not how this works. The DOJ cannot require criminal targets to come in and testify against themselves. However, many of these same criminal targets did testify to the January 6th Committee, and the DOJ can use that testimony in the criminal cases against them.
The DOJ has obviously been doing its own investigative work, given that it’s reportedly had a January 6th grand jury subpoenaing key people in Trump world for at least the past five months. But again, the January 6th Committee has obtained testimony from criminal targets who are likely exercising their right not to talk to the DOJ, so of course the DOJ wanted the testimony that these individuals gave elsewhere – and now the DOJ is predictably getting it.
