More than 1,000 people may face new charges relating to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the Justice Department warned Washington, D.C. courts late last year.
That number comes in addition to the nearly 1,000 people the DOJ had already arrested for Jan. 6 offenses as of February. U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves informed Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the potential prosecutions in an October 2022 letter, according to Bloomberg News. Specifically, the letter stated that the court should expect an additional 700-1,200 prosecutions.
“We expect the pace of bringing new cases will increase, in an orderly fashion, over the course of the next few months,” Graves wrote in the letter, according to Bloomberg News. Graves added that it was difficult to predict the exact number of cases due to the “nature and the complexity of the investigation.”
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to prosecutions of Jan. 6 participants. GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky are planning to visit Jan. 6 defendants being held in the Washington, D.C., jail in the near future.
“We’re going to be addressing the human rights abuse, such as the fact that they’ve been held in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day, denied the ability to see their families,” Greene told The Hill.
Greene previously visited the defendants in November 2021. During an appearance on Steven Bannon’s “The War Room” on Real America’s Voice, the Republican lawmaker claimed the prisoners were being kept in conditions worse than Guantanamo Bay.
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“Last night I finally got into the deplorable jail, the D.C. jail where these people are being held for months on end in conditions like I’ve never seen in my life,” Greene said at the time. “It’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen and every American in this country should be outraged at what’s happening. I don’t care how you vote.”
However, a U.S. Marshal’s inspection of the facility found that the inmates were being held in adequate conditions.
So far, the Washington, D.C., court has released a steady stream of Jan. 6 prosecutions. It is unclear how long the court will take to complete the process.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
