Justice Dept. Widens Jan. 6 Inquiry to Range of Pro-Trump Figures
"First Republicans said, 'Screw democracy..."
Federal prosecutors have been seeking documents and testimony about the fake electors scheme and the planning for the rally just before the storming of the Capitol.
President Donald J. Trump speaking at the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the Capitol riot. Pete Marovich for The New York Times
By Alan Feuer, Katie Benner and Maggie Haberman March 30, 2022
Federal prosecutors have substantially widened their Jan. 6 investigation to examine the possible culpability of a broad range of figures involved in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, people familiar with the inquiry said on Wednesday.
The investigation now encompasses the possible involvement of other government officials in Mr. Trump’s attempts to obstruct the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory and the push by some Trump allies to promote slates of fake electors, they said.
Prosecutors are also asking about planning for the rallies that preceded the assault on the Capitol, including the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 of last year, just before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.
The federal investigation initially focused largely on the rioters who had entered the Capitol, an effort that has led to more than 700 arrests. But the Justice Department appears to have moved into a new phase, seeking information about people more closely tied to Mr. Trump. This development comes amid growing political pressure on Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to move more aggressively on the case.
A grand jury sitting in Washington is investigating the rallies that preceded the storming of the Capitol, a person familiar with the matter said.
One of the subpoenas, which was reviewed by The New York Times, sought information about people “classified as VIP attendees” at Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.
It also sought information about members of the executive and legislative branches who had been involved in the “planning or execution of any rally or any attempt to obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the 2020 election.
And it asked about the effort by Trump supporters to put forward alternate slates of electors as Mr. Trump and his allies were seeking to challenge the certification of the Electoral College outcome by Congress on Jan. 6.
Another person briefed on the grand jury investigation said at least one person involved in the logistics of the Jan. 6 rally had been asked to appear.
In pursuing Jan. 6 cases, prosecutors have been assembling evidence documenting how defendants have cited statements from Mr. Trump to explain why they stormed the Capitol. And prosecutors have cited in some cases a Twitter post from Mr. Trump weeks before Jan. 6 exhorting his followers to come to Washington, a call that motivated extremist groups .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/us/politics/trump-tweet-jan-6.html .. in particular.
The expanded criminal inquiry is unfolding as a separate investigation by the House select committee on the Capitol riot is gathering evidence about Mr. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power and weighing the possibility of making a criminal referral of Mr. Trump to the Justice Department.
On Monday, a federal judge in California, in a civil case involving the House committee, concluded that Mr. Trump likely engaged in criminal conduct .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/28/us/politics/trump-election-crimes.html, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.
Mr. Garland has given little public indication of whether the Justice Department would consider prosecuting Mr. Trump, saying only that the department will follow the facts wherever they lead.
But the expanded inquiry, elements of which were reported .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/30/jan-6-fbi-subpoena-justice/ .. earlier by the Washington Post, suggests that prosecutors are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry. Those include any connections between the attack on the Capitol and the organizers and prominent participants in the rally on the Ellipse, and potential criminality in the promotion of pro-Trump slates of electors to replace slates named by states won by Mr. Biden.
Even as election officials in the seven contested states sent official lists of electors who had voted for Mr. Biden to the Electoral College, the fake slates claimed Mr. Trump was the winner in an apparent bid to subvert the election outcome.
Lawmakers, state officials and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot had asked the Justice Department to look into the role played by those fake electors and the documents they submitted to the National Archives on Dec. 14, 2020. The grand jury subpoenas suggest that prosecutors are seeking to gather evidence of whether submitting the documents to a federal agency amounted to a crime.
---- Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: New Developments
Card [6] of 6
A Trump ally agrees to cooperate. Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of pro-Trump events after the 2020 election, has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s newly expanded investigation of the attack on the Capitol last year.
The effort to disqualify “insurrectionists.” New lawsuits were filed against three Arizona officials, including Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, to bar them from office under the 14th Amendment. This is part of a larger legal effort to disqualify G.O.P. lawmakers from re-election if they participated in events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack.
Contempt charges. The House voted to recommend criminal contempt of Congress charges against Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino Jr., two close allies of former President Donald J. Trump, after the pair defied subpoenas from the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
First acquittal. A federal judge decided that a man who claimed that the police let him into the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot was not guilty of four misdemeanors, the first acquittal connected to the sprawling investigation of the attack.
Ivanka Trump testifies. The former president’s daughter, who served as one of his senior advisers, testified for about eight hours before the Jan. 6 House committee. On the day of the riot, Ms. Trump was in the West Wing. She is said to have tried to persuade her father to call off the rioters.
Justice Department widens inquiry. Federal prosecutors are said to have substantially widened their Jan. 6 investigation to examine the possible culpability of a broad range of pro-Trump figures involved in efforts to overturn the election. The investigation was initially focused on the rioters who had entered the Capitol. ---
The House committee’s investigators, like the federal prosecutors, have also been interested in the planning and financing of the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and key figures involved in it. Ali Alexander, a prominent figure in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement and an organizer of the rally, has been cooperating with the House committee .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/politics/ali-alexander-jan-6-house-testimony.html . Mr. Alexander marched to the Capitol from the rally with Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and Infowars host.
The House panel has also been seeking information from Amy Kremer, the chairwoman of Women for America First, which helped plan the rally.
The committee has also sent subpoenas seeking information from Katrina Pierson, Mr. Trump’s former national campaign spokeswoman; Kylie Jane Kremer, the daughter of Amy Kremer and the director of Women for America First; Lyndon Brentnall, the owner of a Florida-based security company who was the “on-site supervisor” for the rally; Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of the former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney who is listed on the permit for the event; Megan Powers, an operations manager; and Tim Unes, whose company was listed as the stage manager for the gathering.
The criminal charges against rioters so far have ranged from misdemeanors to obstructing Congress in its duty to certify the Electoral College result. The Justice Department has also lodged conspiracy charges against leaders of two of the extremist groups who figured prominently in the Capitol attack, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
Alan Feuer covers courts and criminal justice for the Metro desk. He has written about mobsters, jails, police misconduct, wrongful convictions, government corruption and El Chapo, the jailed chief of the Sinaloa drug cartel. He joined The Times in 1999. @alanfeuer
Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @ktbenner
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The Times in 2015 as a campaign correspondent and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. @maggieNYT
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