Garland praises Oath Keepers verdict, won't say where Jan. 6 probe goes - The Washington Post

Throughout the trial, prosecutors highlighted the defendants’ links to cardinal allies of President Donald Trump, specified arsenic Roger Stone, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, erstwhile nationalist information advisor Michael Flynn and attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.

But Garland declined to accidental Wednesday if helium expected prosecutors to yet record charges against them oregon immoderate different radical who did not physically enactment successful the onslaught connected the U.S. Capitol connected Jan. 6, 2021.

“I don’t privation to speculate connected different investigations oregon parts of different investigations,” Garland told reporters astatine a briefing wherever helium besides touted Justice Department efforts to found national oversight of the h2o proviso strategy successful Jackson, Miss.

Garland called the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation, and Jackson’s h2o crisis, “significant matters of nationalist interest.”

“I’m precise arrogant of the attorneys, investigators and unit whose unwavering committedness to regularisation of instrumentality and tireless enactment resulted successful yesterday successful these 2 important victories,” helium said.

Tuesday’s verdicts upheld a cardinal Justice Department statement laid retired successful the seven-week-long trial: that the breach of the Capitol was not an isolated event, but alternatively a culmination oregon constituent of wider plotting by extremists who wanted to halt the transportation of powerfulness from Trump to Biden. In this case, the assemblage recovered Oath Keepers laminitis Stewart Rhodes and a apical deputy, Kelly Meggs, astatine slightest partially liable for staging firearms and preparing to forcibly reason national authority. Both were convicted of “seditious conspiracy,” a seldom utilized complaint that is among the astir superior levied truthful acold successful the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation.

Justice Department officials had been eyeing the Oath Keepers verdict to assistance determine whether to record transgression charges against different high-profile, pro-Trump figures who had roles successful the buildup to the violence, according to radical with cognition of the investigation.

The people, who spoke connected the information of anonymity to sermon interior deliberations, said prosecutors volition besides see the result of an upcoming proceedings involving members of different extremist group, the Proud Boys, scheduled to commencement successful mid-December.

At the briefing with reporters Tuesday, Garland besides said that helium has asked the House Jan. 6 committee — which has been pursuing a abstracted probe into the onslaught — for each interrogation transcripts and grounds that it has collected. That’s agelong been a constituent of hostility betwixt the Justice Department and Congress, with the committee yet to manus implicit each the materials.

“We would similar to person each the transcripts and each the different grounds collected by the committee truthful that we tin usage it successful the mean people of our investigation,” Garland said.

After Trump announced successful mid-November that helium would tally for president successful 2024, Garland appointed a peculiar counsel to oversee investigations related to Trump and his advisers aft helium mislaid the 2020 election, arsenic good arsenic a abstracted probe of Trump’s possession of classified documents aft helium near the White House.

Defined successful the instrumentality arsenic an effort by 2 oregon much radical to “conspire to overthrow, enactment down, oregon to destruct by unit the Government of the United States,” oregon to forcibly reason its authorization oregon laws, seditious conspiracy is seldom charged. Prosecutors often presumption it arsenic hard to beryllium astatine trial, peculiarly erstwhile other, simpler crimes tin beryllium charged for the aforesaid conduct.

Praveen Fernandes, vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center — a wide deliberation vessel and instrumentality steadfast that had been intimately tracking the Rhodes proceedings — said the blameworthy verdict is significant.

“It’s not conscionable a transportation of justness successful respect to Rhodes and Kelly Meggs — but it is simply a motion that a assemblage was capable to recognize what happened that time arsenic seditious conspiracy,” Fernandes said. “It astatine slightest opens up a beingness that says it is astatine slightest imaginable to unafraid specified a condemnation connected acts that led up to Jan. 6.”

But ineligible experts besides warned that the verdict wasn’t a slam-dunk for the government, highlighting however hard seditious conspiracy cases are to pursue. Three different Oath Keeper associates who were connected proceedings were acquitted connected the sedition charges. All 5 defendants were recovered blameworthy of obstructing Congress arsenic members met connected Jan. 6 to corroborate the results of the 2020 election, a cardinal measurement successful the country’s peaceful transportation of power.

In deciding the seditious conspiracy charge, jurors appeared to absorption connected written oregon recorded evidence of conspiratorial intent, a informing motion for prosecutors that the threshold to convict radical connected this uncommon complaint is high.

Rhodes lawyer James Lee Bright said helium expects the Justice Department nevertheless to instrumentality the mixed verdict arsenic a motion to determination “full-steam ahead” with prosecutions against others allegedly progressive successful the readying of what unfolded connected Jan. 6.

The national prosecutors astatine Rhodes’ proceedings made wide that Stone, a long-serving governmental advisor to Trump who has consistently denied immoderate cognition of oregon engagement successful amerciable acts astatine the Capitol connected Jan. 6, was a absorption of inquiry, introducing grounds they said the authorities obtained from his telephone successful December 2021.

On the time that tv networks declared Biden had won the election, prosecutors alleged, Rhodes shared a substance with Stone, Alexander and Proud Boys person Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and others asking: “What’s the plan?”

They besides alleged that Rhodes shared a program with that aforesaid “Friends of Stone” encrypted chat radical that included slug points from an anti-government uprising successful Serbia that included storming its parliament.

Rhodes besides wrote nationalist letters to Trump, urging him to invoke the Insurrection Act to mobilize the subject and backstage militia to guarantee helium remained successful power.

But attorneys for radical who worked for Trump, and different Oath Keepers members, expressed skepticism that Trump received oregon acted connected those messages.

“Of the 10 terabytes of grounds that we’ve had disposable to america successful this trial, I tin archer you that determination is thing successful the assemblage of grounds that we’ve been fixed oregon shown that would successful immoderate mode beryllium indicative of the quality to indict erstwhile president Trump for January 6th,” Bright, 1 of Rhodes’ attorneys, told reporters aft Tuesday’s verdict.

On Wednesday, Garland said that the enactment of Justice Department attorneys successful securing the blameworthy verdicts “makes wide the section volition enactment tirelessly to clasp relationship those liable for crimes related to attacks connected our ideology connected Jan 2021.”

Tom Jackman contributed to this report.