Biden Still Aggressively Prosecuting January 6 Defendants As Pardons Loom

President Joe Biden’s administration is spending its waning days continuing a four-year effort to prosecute more than 1,500 people for being in or near the Capitol on January 6, 2021, despite the likely futility of the effort and lingering questions about the event that Democrats have described as an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government — seemingly the first insurrection in which the vast majority of participants chose to leave their weapons at home.

On December 20, prosecutors announced a new arrest, writing that “In the 47 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,572 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol.”

On December 30, defense lawyer Joseph Ross told a judge that prosecutors hadn’t agreed to delay a sentencing scheduled for January 7, despite the fact that Ross’ father’s funeral is that day. Prosecutors are seeking a year in prison for his client, Bradley Bennett, despite admitting that Bennett “is essentially homeless” and did not commit any violence. Charging documents say he made a video in which he shouts “‘We’re in the Capitol.’ His codefendant hollers, ‘Wooooo.’”

The same day, federal prosecutors requested that Brian Mock continue to serve his 33-month prison term, despite the Supreme Court ruling that Mock and other January 6 defendants had faced charges for “obstructing an official proceeding” that did not apply. On January 2, they asked a judge to sentence Nathaniel Tuck to 24 months in prison, exceeding the sentencing guideline of 10 to 16 months.

The continued prosecutions have bankrupted defendants even as it seems likely that Donald Trump will pardon most January 6 suspects soon after he takes office on January 20.

The pursuit of Trump supporters, many on trespassing charges, has vacuumed up federal law enforcement resources for years. For example, in December 2020, a man with the screen name “gayboy69freak” allegedly sent an undercover agent from the FBI’s Washington Field Office a picture of “a prepubescent minor male being anally penetrated by an adult male’s erect penis,” and tried to arrange sex with the agent’s supposed son. The field office decided to abandon the case to prioritize January 6 defendants. The man remained free and was later found with a 10-year-old boy in Alaska, according to court documents.

Americans’ sense that crime is rising and prosecutors are turning a blind eye helped pave the way for Trump’s victory in November. And pardons for January 6 suspects would entirely wipe away one of Joe Biden’s signature focuses.

But they could also have a lasting effect on the FBI’s culture. After a top official claimed this month’s ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans was not terrorism, an anonymous agent told the Washington Times that a cohort of hires joined the bureau believing that its purpose is to round up Trump supporters, and “It ain’t terrorism unless they have a MAGA hat on.”

The FBI and prosecutors in Washington, D.C., used cell phone GPS tracking, facial recognition, and tips — including turning children against their own parents — to pursue largely nonviolent Capitol defendants, even as violent crime in D.C. surged. Matthew Graves, the Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, dropped murder and kidnapping charges against a woman who allegedly carjacked a car outside a hospital while an elderly lady with multiple sclerosis was inside of it, and crashed it into Graves’ own office, killing the woman.

Meanwhile, Graves pursued a great-grandmother, Rebecca Lavrenz, because on January 6, “From approximately 2:45-2:47, Lavrenz milled about in the Rotunda,” according to a court document filed by a “U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and FBI Task Force Officer assigned to… the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

The January 6 defendants faced a jury pool drawn solely from the District of Columbia, whose residents voted 93% against Trump in 2020. Requests for a venue change were denied, with prosecutors telling a judge it was “offensive” to say that D.C. residents had “allegedly homogeneous” viewpoints.

Even as agents used elaborate surveillance on minor participants, the FBI said it was unable to solve the most dramatic aspects of January 6: alleged pipe bombs discovered at the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, and the construction of a gallows. Last week, the FBI announced that after four years, it had determined that the pipe bomber might be five-foot-seven. A top FBI official previously told Congress it couldn’t locate the pipe bomber because cell phone companies turned over corrupted GPS data. But a report by the House Committee on Administration, released last week, said the cell phone companies said that was not true.

The report said that after Capitol Police discovered the DNC bomb and prepared a controlled detonation, they failed to establish clear boundaries about who could go where — leading schoolchildren to walk within steps of the bomb, trains to travel above it, and even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s motorcade to drive right by it. The fact that Pelosi entered a restricted area, seemingly unaware, raises questions about whether some January 6 defendants similarly had no idea they weren’t supposed to be in the Capitol. Video seemingly shows some being calmly escorted on tours by Capitol Police.

The summer of 2020 was marked by riots fueled by allegations of police brutality, none of which resulted in arrests as aggressive as January 6. There was only one killing at January 6: the shooting of Ashley Babbitt, an unarmed Trump supporter, by Michael Byrd, a police officer with a disciplinary history.

Perhaps the most curious part of the alleged pipe bomb is Democrats’ determination to avoid calling attention to it, even as it would provide the strongest evidence that January 6 was violent. Kamala Harris was visiting the DNC when the bomb was found. But instead of lamenting that she was the victim of an attempted assassination, she concealed the fact that she was there, and prosecutors falsely said she was at the Capitol to make trespassing there seem worse.