WASHINGTON — Members of far-right extremist groups. Former police officers. An Olympic gold medalist swimmer. And active-duty U.S. Marines.
They are among the hundreds of people who have been convicted in the massive prosecution of the January 6, 2021, riot in the three years since the stunned nation watched the U.S. Capitol attack unfold on live TV.
Washington’s federal courthouse remains flooded with trials, guilty plea hearings and sentencings stemming from what has become the largest criminal investigation in American history. And the hunt for suspects is far from over.
“We cannot replace votes and deliberation with violence and intimidation,” Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters on Thursday.
Authorities are still working to identify more than 80 people wanted for acts of violence at the Capitol and to find out who placed pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic national committees’ offices the day before the Capitol attack. And they continue to regularly make new arrests, even as some January 6 defendants are being released from prison after completing their sentences.
The cases are playing out at the same courthouse where Donald Trump is scheduled to stand trial in March in the case accusing the former president of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the Capitol attack.
“The Justice Department will hold all January 6 perpetrators at any level accountable under the law, whether they were present that day or otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday.
He said the cases filed by Graves and the special counsel in Trump’s federal case, Jack Smith, show the department is “abiding by the long-standing norms to ensure independence and integrity or our investigations.”
