Garland boasts of 950 Jan. 6 arrests, could double to 2,000!
Department of Justice investigation 'far from over'
By Peter LaBarberaPublished January 6, 2023 at 7:41pm
Jan. 6 Capitol rally (video screenshot)
On the two-year anniversary of Jan. 6, Attorney General Merrick Garland boasted that more than 950 Americans have been arrested for taking part in the protest-turned-riot at the U.S. Capitol, and promised "our work is far from over."
"Two years ago, the United States Capitol was attacked as lawmakers met to affirm the results of a presidential election. Perpetrators attacked police officers, targeted and assaulted members of the media, and interfered with a fundamental element of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next," said Garland in the statement. “Since then, countless agents, investigators, prosecutors, analysts, and others across the Justice Department have participated in one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history.
"I am extremely grateful for the dedication, professionalism, and integrity with which they have done this work. This investigation has resulted in the arrest of more than 950 defendants for their alleged roles in the attack. We have secured convictions for a wide range of criminal conduct on January 6 as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. Our work is far from over," he said.
Journalist Julie Kelly, the most prominent conservative critic of Garland's J6 prosecutions and the Democrats' J6 crusade, tweeted today that an FBI official this week warned the investigation will continue "for years." Kelly said the U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., Matthew Graves, has indicated that the "total number of [J6] defendants could reach 2,000—twice the number currently charged."
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The immense and unprecedented nature of the federal Jan. 6 investigation is one thing that Garland's defenders and his conservative detractors can agree on. Many on the left continue to press the "insurrection" narrative, accusing Donald Trump and his devoted followers of being a "threat to democracy" and even "domestic terrorists." A year ago today, Vice President Kamala Harris was ridiculed for comparing Jan. 6 to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 Islamic terror attack on America.
Meanwhile, most Trump-supporting conservatives counter that Garland's heavy-handed prosecution and detainment of J6 protesters is the true "threat to democracy," as its goal is to politically neutralize Trump, who has already declared that he is running again for the presidency in 2024.
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There is also the factor of the suspected substantial involvement of federal agents in the Jan. 6 protest, leading some conservatives to call the melee that day a "Fedsurrection." (Kelly calls it a "staged insurrection.") The flashpoint for many Trump supports has been the DOJ's non-prosecution of Ray Epps, who is infamously shown on many real-time J6 videos (shot by other attendees) urging pro-Trump ralliers to "go into the Capitol." Some of the same videos show a crowd of marchers calling out Epps as a "fed" because of his over-the-top, deliberate calls to storm the Capitol.
Epps, labeled a "fed-protected provocateur" by one conservative news site, was once on the FBI's most-wanted list for his role in Jan. 6. But then he was quietly removed from it and he now remains free while other Americans face possible jail time or at least ruinous legal fees defending against federal charges merely because they walked in the Capitol, some of whom after having been let in by Capitol Police officers.
No pro-Trump conservative has done more than American Greatness writer Kelly to expose the injustices committed against Jan. 6 protesters and the politicization of the Justice Department.
Time and time again, Kelly's reporting has highlighted the prosecutorial misconduct and overkill that has resulted in regular, Trump-loving conservatives who got caught up in an unruly D.C. protest being treated like hardened criminals.
In her Jan. 6 anniversary article, Kelly cites the case of pro-Trump advocate Scott Christensen and his wife Holly, who came to the nation's capital in 2020 to support Trump, and whose lives were forever changed because they entered the Capitol building, having been let in by police.
Writes Kelly: "The FBI investigated Scott and Holly Christensen for more than 14 months; agents interrogated coworkers, scoured social media accounts, reviewed hours of security video from inside the Capitol building and body cam footage from law enforcement, and issued a search warrant to confirm the couple’s whereabouts that day."
Kelly describes how an unidentified agent in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force used data from the Christensen's cell phones (acquired from AT&T) to pin them to alleged criminal activity.
"So, what exactly did these alleged 'domestic terrorists' do?" she writes. "They entered the Capitol through open doors as police officers stood by. Carrying no weapons, the couple took photos inside the Rotunda and wandered through some hallways; surveillance video shows Holly Christensen talking to a Capitol police officer. At another point, Scott Christensen chatted with a D.C. Metro police officer, a conversation captured on a body-worn camera. Police led the pair toward an exit door about 45 minutes later without arresting them."
Cases like the Christensen's and Ray Epps have increasingly led Trump supporters to disbelieve and discard the Democrats' Jan. 6 narrative and instead look to the new Republican-led House to shed light on all that actually happened that day, especially factors like the involvement of federal agents in the protest that Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans failed to investigate.
Kelly bemoans that "18 GOP senators voted to pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill last month, which included a $3.5 billion raise for the Justice Department, millions of which will be spent on hiring more government lawyers to prosecute Jan. 6 cases. The FBI won a $570 million boost, bringing the bureau’s total annual budget to more than $11 billion."
The DOJ press release does not use the loaded term "insurrection," but it does call it an "assault on our democracy" and implies that the post-Jan. 6 death of Capitol Hill Police officer Brian Sicknick was linked to the pro-Trump protest. As WND.com founder Joseph Farah has described it, the New York Times and other media originally reported that Sicknick had been hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during the protest, ostensibly causing his death. But those claims were proved to be false. While anti-Trump writers like Jonah Goldberg rushed to claim that Sicknick had been "bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher," he actually died of natural causes.
Nevertheless, a new $10 million lawsuit was filed Jan. 5 by Sicknick's former girlfriend, Sandra Garza, targeting Donald Trump as allegedly having a role in the police officer's death, Just the News reports.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The "Climate Change Cult." The "Anti-Racism Cult." The "Cult of Wokeness." The "LGBTQ Cult" and its predatory offspring targeting America's children, the "Transgender Cult." The "Cult of Abortion." The "COVID Cult." The "Cult of Globalism." "TikTok Cults." Every month the list grows.
To right-thinking Americans attempting to make sense of a nation seemingly gone mad, it's becoming increasingly clear that the irrational, deranged – and often demonic – leftwing political and cultural movements currently capturing the minds of millions of Americans are nothing short of full-fledged cults.
Although the high priesthood of all these leftwing religious cults – i.e., university professors, academics and other Marxist ideologues and activists – may be true believers, the people actually wielding REAL POWER do not believe any of it. To them, these leftwing cults conveniently serve to disguise and distract "the rabble" from what the leader class is REALLY up to, which is the pursuit of ever more power, wealth and glory for themselves, and a total transformation of America and the world.
All of this and much more is explored in a powerful, insightful and absolutely unique way in the latest issue of WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled "HOLY WAR: Defeating the growing cult of leftism and its total war on Christianity."
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