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DOJ OIG Announces Initiation of Review

Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today that:

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is initiating a review to examine the role and activity of DOJ and its components in preparing for and responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The DOJ OIG will coordinate its review with reviews also being conducted by the Offices of Inspector General of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of the Interior. The DOJ OIG review will include examining information relevant to the January 6 events that was available to DOJ and its components in advance of January 6; the extent to which such information was shared by DOJ and its components with the U.S. Capitol Police and other federal, state, and local agencies; and the role of DOJ personnel in responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The DOJ OIG also will assess whether there are any weaknesses in DOJ protocols, policies, or procedures that adversely affected the ability of DOJ or its components to prepare effectively for and respond to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. If circumstances warrant, the DOJ OIG will consider examining other issues that may arise during the review.

The DOJ OIG is mindful of the sensitive nature of the ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions related to the events of January 6. Consistent with long-standing OIG practice, in conducting this review, the DOJ OIG will take care to ensure that the review does not interfere with these investigations or prosecutions.

Posted Date January 15, 2021

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https://oig.justice.gov/news/doj-oig-announces-initiation-review-1

United States Department of Justice
Press Conference
Friday, January 15, 2021, 1:00 PM Eastern

PARTICIPANTS

Marc Raimondi - Spokesman

Michael Sherwin - Interim United States Attorney for the District of
Columbia

Steven D'Antuono - FBI Assistant Director in Charge of Washington Field
Officer

Ashan Benedict - Special Agent in Charge of ATF Office in Washington


PRESENTATION

Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Department of Justice media call. All participants will be in listen-
only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing "*"
followed by "0". After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. You
may join the queue at any time during the presentation by pressing "*" then "1" on your
touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press "*" then "2". Please note this event is
being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Marc Raimondi. Please go ahead.

Marc Raimondi
Thank you, and thank you all for joining us. We are a few minutes late because we wanted to
wait until the mayor of DC was able to finish her press conference because I think hers went a
little late.

We have three speakers today that will give brief remarks, and then we have time for a few
questions, and then we will let these guys that are leading the investigations and the
prosecutions get back to work. The first that is going to speak is the Acting U.S. Attorney for the
District of Washington, Michael Sherwin. He is going to be followed by the FBI Assistant
Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office Steven D'Antuono, and then we have an
individual, Ashan Benedict, who is the Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Office here in
Washington. Again he hasn't been one on these calls previously. It is Ashan, A-S-H-A-N
Benedict, B-E-N-E-D-I-C-T.

Without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Michael Sherwin, but I would ask that if you do
think you're going to ask a question, start queuing up now, I believe it is "*" "1" to queue up so
we can get right into the Q&A phase and then let these guys get back to their day job. Thank
you. Go ahead.

Michael Sherwin
So hello, everyone. It is Mike Sherwin here. So a quick update with where we are at in terms of
prosecution and the investigation, and then I will turn it over to my colleagues here with the
Bureau and ATF.

So as of this morning 8 AM, we have currently 175 open investigations that are subjects that we
are currently looking at related to the violence in the capital. That would include cases of
violence outside the Capitol and also on the Capitol grounds, and also inside the Capitol. Of--as
related to those 275 open investigations, we anticipate that that is going to grow easily past 300
probably by the end of the day and then exponentially increase into the weekend and next
week.

So again, as of 8 AM this morning, in terms of cases, prosecutions we have opened 98 criminal
cases in terms of criminal cases that have been filed, and the majority of those cases are
federal felony cases, so I think I tried to articulate this earlier this week that, initially, we were
looking to fix, fine and charge the low hanging fruit, the individuals that we could easily roundup
in charge. A great bulk of those were misdemeanor cases, but as the investigation continues, as
the days and weeks progress, we are looking at more significant federal felony charges, and
that is exactly what we are doing in partnership with our local and federal partners.

So some of the cases that I think want to just highlight, they are emblematic of what we are
trying to do here are the following in terms of trying to really focus on some of the violent
offenders both inside and outside the Capitol. Some of these cases include Mr. Peter Stager;
this was the individual out of Arkansas. He was charged with a federal felony and arrested
yesterday in Arkansas, and this was the individual I think that's really the height of hypocrisy
that was beating an MPD officer with a flagpole, and at the other end of that flagpole was
attached the American flag and look as a veteran I found that case even more egregious, the
act of again just the hypocrisy of Mr. Stager's actions.

Another case focusing on violence that was Mr. Steger's case was violence on law
enforcement, and we are specifically focusing on that but also, unfortunately, as this case goes
on, we are seeing indications that law enforcement officers, both former and current, may have
been off duty and participating in this riot activity and I think as we said earlier, we don't care
what your profession is, who you are, who you are affiliated with if you were conducting or
engaged in criminal activity we will charge you, and you will be arrested, and that is exactly what
we are doing.

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Much more in PDF...

Inside Garland’s Effort to Prosecute Trump


By Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman

Reporting from Washington

Published March 22, 2024 Updated March 27, 2024

After being sworn in as attorney general in March 2021, Merrick B. Garland gathered his closest aides to discuss a topic too sensitive to broach in bigger groups: the possibility that evidence from the far-ranging Jan. 6 investigation could quickly lead to former President Donald J. Trump and his inner circle. At the time, some in the Justice Department were pushing for the chance to look at ties between pro-Trump rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, his allies who had camped out at the Willard Hotel, and possibly Mr. Trump himself.

Mr. Garland said he would place no restrictions on their work, even if the “evidence leads to Trump,” according to people with knowledge of several conversations held over his first months in office. “Follow the connective tissue upward,” said Mr. Garland, adding a directive that would eventually lead to a dead end: “Follow the money.” With that, he set the course of a determined and methodical, if at times dysfunctional and maddeningly slow, investigation that would yield the indictment of Mr. Trump on four counts of election interference in August 2023.

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People around Mr. Garland, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Justice Department affairs, say there would be no case against Mr. Trump had Mr. Garland not acted decisively. And any perception that the department had made Mr. Trump a target from the outset, without exploring other avenues, would have doomed the investigation. “Don’t confuse thoughtful with unduly cautious,” said a former deputy attorney general, Jamie S. Gorelick, who sent Mr. Garland, then her top aide, to oversee the prosecution of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. “He was fearless. You could see it then, and you could see it when he authorized the search at Mar-a-Lago.”

Mr. Garland’s allies point to how, by the summer of 2021, the attorney general and his powerful deputy, Lisa O. Monaco, were so frustrated with the pace of the work that they created a team to investigate Trump allies who gathered at the Willard Hotel ahead of Jan. 6 — John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Roger J. Stone Jr. — and possible connections to the Trump White House, according to former officials. That team would lay the groundwork for the investigation that Mr. Smith would take over as special counsel a year and a half later. But a host of factors, some in Mr. Garland’s control, others not, slowed things down.

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Much more... https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/us/politics/trump-jan-6-merrick-garland.html

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