Biden’s DOJ Throws Wrench in Jan. 6 Defendants’ Requests

The Department of Justice said Monday that special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to pause his prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump is not reason to do the same for rioters that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Last week, Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan for three weeks to assess how to proceed in a pending election interference case against Trump following his victory in the November 5 presidential election.
After Chutkan granted Smith’s request, several January 6 defendants, including conservative journalist Steve Baker, argued the ruling meant that all criminal cases connected to the Capitol riots should be halted.
William Shipley, Baker’s attorney, filed a motion Sunday to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that stated in part, “To deny this motion, in the face of the Justice Department’s official position [in the Trump case], would run contrary to the interests of justice and likely subject the defendant to criminal convictions for no purpose other than expediency.”
Baker’s trial is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, according to court documents.
The DOJ said Monday that Trump’s case was unique and didn’t represent the government’s position against defendants in other January 6 cases.
Among those federally charged in connection with the Capitol riot, over 500 were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding police; some 1,000 have pleaded guilty or were found guilty during trial as of October 6.
“There is a public interest in the prompt and efficient administration of justice. The government and the Court have endeavored to deliver that interest,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Isia Jasiewicz wrote in a response to Baker’s request.
“The defendant’s citation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to vacate a briefing schedule in the matter of United States v. Trump…is inapposite,” she wrote.
“That motion refers to the ‘unprecedented circumstance’ of a criminal defendant being ‘expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025.’ The need to ‘determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,’ is not similarly implicated in this case, where the defendant is a private citizen.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court should deny the defendant’s motion to continue and proceed with a change of plea hearing (or trial, if necessary) on November 12, 2024.”
Newsweek reached out to the DOJ and Shipley via email for comment on Monday.
Trump’s presidential election victory has sparked an explosion of enthusiasm among imprisoned January 6 rioters and their supporters, as many expect that the former president will pardon them once he returns office in 2025.
“After four long years, I’m finally coming home. It’s so surreal,” Edward Jacob “Jake” Lang, who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and was arrested in the same month, told Newsweek on Wednesday, the same day Trump was elected president for a second time. “Hollywood couldn’t have written a better story.”
While Trump has promised to pardon some of those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he has not specified who that includes.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt previously said his administration would decide “on a case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House.”