In the past two months, 93 people have been arrested and charged, according to Department of Justice (DOJ) reports.
At the current rate, some 445 new cases could hit the docket in 2024—more than in 2022 and 2023, according to one estimate.
In total, up to March 6, at least 1,358 people have been arrested by the FBI and criminally charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for crimes related to Jan. 6.
If the current trend is to hold, total arrests could be 2,150 by the time the statute of limitations on Jan. 6 crimes expires in early 2026, according to Jacob Rugh, associate professor of sociology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Mr. Rugh and researcher Isabella Felin have been publishing Jan. 6 statistics and data visualization on X and Instagram since August 2022.
William Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who has represented more than 50 Jan. 6 defendants, said he noticed an upswing in cases starting in September 2023.
“Within the past two months, three months, it seems like you’re seeing six, eight, 10 a week,” Mr. Shipley said on Feb. 23 during an Epoch Times panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
“Every day, every day you see two or three more,” Mr. Shipley said. “My own view: it’s a political operation. Just my personal opinion. I think the Department of Justice, the Biden administration, is committed to continuing to keep this story front and center for purposes of the campaign.”
Mr. Shipley said there was a six- to eight-month pause in arrests and prosecutions starting in early 2023 due to the strain Jan. 6 cases put on D.C. federal courts.
“You’ve got a five-year statute of limitations, you don’t need to arrest everybody and prosecute them in the first 18 months, and there was a pause,” Mr. Shipley said. “There was a clear period of time where there weren’t arrests of any significant number happening.”
The top arrest states include Florida (129), Texas (104), Pennsylvania (93), California (90), New York (80), Ohio (71), and Virginia (67). Together they comprise nearly 50 percent of all Jan. 6 defendants, according to research by Mr. Rugh.
About 63 percent of Jan. 6 criminal cases have been adjudicated and defendants sentenced, according to DOJ figures. About 58 percent of defendants were given jail or prison time, 19 percent received home detention, and another 3.5 percent received a combination.
Of the 769 defendants who pleaded guilty to charges, 69 percent were for misdemeanors and 31 percent for felonies, the DOJ reports.
Some 1,276 defendants were charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and 486 were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers.
More than 350 were hit with the controversial “corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding” charge. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 16 on a challenge to how the DOJ has used 2002-era corporate fraud statutes to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants for interrupting the counting of Electoral College votes.
Perfect Conviction Rate
Perhaps the most remarkable Jan. 6 statistic comes from jury boxes in the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington D.C.
Every one of the more than 100 Jan. 6 defendants who chose a jury trial were found guilty of at least some of the charges. That’s a perfect 100-percent conviction rate for federal prosecutors, a statistic cited repeatedly in change-of-venue motions. One hundred percent of those motions have been denied.
Mr. Shipley told The Epoch Times that the DOJ’s historical conviction rate in the District of Columbia is about 65 percent, lower than the 90 percent that is “more typical” in other federal court districts.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/after-pause-jan-6-arrests-are-now-sharply-increasing