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DOJ says it needs more money for the Jan. 6 probe. The next spending bill may be its last chance.
The Justice Department says extra funding is "critically needed" to sustain its investigation into Jan. 6, but the message hasn't broken through with some on the Hill.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-says-needs-money-jan-6-probe-spending-bill-may-last-chance-rcna51767

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration says it is in critical need of more money to bring the Jan. 6 rioters to justice. But it’s not clear Congress will grant that request in a major funding bill planned for December. And if it fails to do so before the new year, a potential Republican-led House could imperil the resources they need.

With just weeks of work left in this Congress, the future of the sprawling federal criminal investigation into the thousands of rioters who stormed the building in support of then-President Donald Trump rests, in part, in the hands of congressional appropriators who craft funding bills to keep the government running.

“There are lots of requests,” House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said when asked about the Department of Justice's request for the extra Jan. 6 funding in the year-end bill. “We’re taking a look at all of them and seeing what makes it and seeing what doesn’t make it.”

The Justice Department has called Jan. 6 “the most wide-ranging investigation” in its history, with more than 870 arrests so far. For 21 months, the investigation, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, has largely been propped up with help from 93 federal prosecutors' offices from across the country who are volunteering personnel.

But the work is far from over and the department needs more resources to move full-speed ahead, more than a dozen sources close to the investigation told NBC News in July. As one official put it, "We don’t have the manpower."

Online sleuths had identified hundreds of additional Jan. 6 rioters who have not yet been arrested; one of the sleuths who is closely tracking the Justice Department’s caseload noted that the number of outstanding cases is going down, with sentences now outpacing new arrests, which have slowed to roughly four per week since the beginning of 2022. That falls far below the number of arrests made in 2021, which have kept the court docket in federal court in D.C. loaded up as cases work their way through the process.

While a new crop of assistant U.S. attorneys filling temporary roles could help pick up the pace of arrests in the coming months, the long-term trajectory of the criminal probe depends in part on the fiscal year 2023 budget, which Congress is planning to pass in December, around the time the Jan. 6 committee is expected to issue its final report.

The Justice Department has told Congress that more than $34 million in funding is "critically needed" to fund the investigation.

“The cases are unprecedented in scale and is expected to be among the most complex investigations prosecuted by the Department of Justice,” the Justice Department wrote to the legislative branch.

Failure to get extra funds, the department said, will have a “detrimental impact” on U.S. Attorney's Offices across the country, which would “need to incur a budget reduction to fund these prosecutions.” That, in turn, could keep offices from filling vacancies and prosecuting other important cases in their home jurisdictions, the Justice Department told Congress.

Congress has until Dec. 16 to strike a funding agreement and negotiators plan to return after the Nov. 8 election to try to hash out a full-year deal. Before they broke for recess, lawmakers involved in the talks told NBC News that the fate of the Justice request was still unsettled.

While the department has conveyed its needs to the Hill, senior lawmakers said they were not aware that the future of the Jan. 6 investigation could depend on the next budget round.

“There are a lot of items that are up in the air at this point. We are negotiating at the highest levels, and I don’t actually know where that provision might be," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the No. 2 Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.