Consider This from NPR - Justice Department Struggles To Bring Jan. 6th Cases To Trial

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Four police officers offered harrowing testimony of their experiences protecting the U.S. Capitol on January 6th during the first hearing for a new Democrat-led House Select Committee investigating the attacks. The committee was proposed as a bi-partisan effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi but after she rejected two nominees from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the hearings have begun without support from Republican leaders. Since January 6th the Justice Department has arrested hundreds of people who were at the Capitol. NPR Investigations Correspondent Dina Temple-Raston reports that while those cases initially seemed like they'd be a slam dunk, the process of bringing them to trial has proved more difficult than anyone could have imagined.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org It's an important part of the record for this committee's investigation, for the country's understanding of how I was assaulted and nearly killed as the mob attacked the Capitol that day. This is D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone speaking on Tuesday to the House Select Committee

investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. And just a heads up, it might be disturbing for some listeners. My body camera captured the violence of the crowd directed toward me during those very frightening moments. I was grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm as I heard chants of kill him with his own gun. I could still hear those words in my head today. I'm sure I was screaming, but I don't think I could even hear my own voice. At some point during the fighting, I was dragged from the line of officers and into the crowd.

I said as loud as I could manage, I've got kids. Fanone was one of four police officers who testified on Tuesday. It was the first hearing held by the Democratic-led House Select Committee investigating the attack. Some Republican politicians have downplayed the violence of that day, and here's what Fanone said about that. I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room. But too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful. I told them to just leave the Capitol and in response they yelled, no man, this is our house. President Trump invited us here.

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn was in the Speaker's lobby, preventing the rioters from entering the House chamber. They told him they were there because, quote, no one voted for Joe Biden. I do my best to keep politics out of my job. But in this circumstance, I responded, well, I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? Am I nobody? That prompted a torrent of racial epithets.

One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled, you hear that, guys? This s*** voted for Joe Biden. Dunn said a crowd of around 20 people then joined in, screaming the N-word at him. Later, once the rioters left the Capitol, Dunn sat down next to another Black officer and told him about the racial slurs he endured. I became very emotional and began yelling, how the blank could something like this happen? Is this America? Consider this. The events of January 6th and the political struggle

over the investigation tell us about the fragility of American democracy. Coming up, we'll hear from the politicians who want answers and from some of the people who took part in the riot that threatened those politicians' lives.

From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Wednesday, July 28th. This message comes from NPR sponsor Nature Valley Granola Bars. Having a busy day? Nature Valley invites you to take a minute to re-energize with the sounds of nature, starting with this walk through the forest. For more, visit TakeInTheOutdoors.com. NPR's Planet Money Summer School is back.

This season is all about investing. We've got stories of big bets, bubble spotting, and cute animals, too. Every Wednesday, it's a Labor Day from NPR's Planet Money. It's Consider This from NPR. I want to begin by reflecting briefly on the investigation that we're launching today. In her opening statement, select committee member and Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming explained what brought us here to a committee hearing with buy-in from leaders of only one party. Every one of us here on the dais voted for and would have preferred that these matters be investigated by an independent, nonpartisan commission

composed of five prominent Americans selected by each party and modeled on the 9-11 commission. Although such a commission was opposed by my own leadership in the House, it overwhelmingly passed with the support of 35 Republican members. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate. And that leaves us where we are today. If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic. I never expected a day to be quite as emotional for me as it has been.

There are nine members of Congress on the select committee, seven Democrats and two Republicans, Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Here's Kinzinger addressing the four officers who testified. You guys may like individually feel a little broken. You guys all talk about the effects you have to deal with. And, you know, you talk about the impact of that day. But you guys won. You guys held. At least one person in the room didn't want that bipartisan moment to get too self-congratulatory. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded

as courageous heroes. And while I agree with that notion, why? Again, Officer Harry Dunn. Because they told the truth. Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is. There was an attack carried out on January 6th, and a hitman sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that.

After that hearing on Tuesday, I asked Democrat Adam Schiff, Congressman of California, how far he'll go to get to the bottom of that. He told me the committee is willing to subpoena Donald Trump and Republican leaders like Kevin McCarthy if it comes to that. We'll do whatever is necessary to make sure we get the answers. If they have relevant information to this investigation, then we will hear from them. While the House Select Committee just began its investigation of the January 6th attacks, the FBI has been trying to piece together the puzzle for more than six months. Nearly 600 people have been arrested. But bringing those cases to trial has been a challenge. NPR correspondent Dina Temple-Raston has spent months speaking with

defense attorneys, prosecutors, and defendants, the people at the Capitol on January 6th, to understand how the Justice Department plans to move forward with what it has called the largest criminal case in its history. The FBI arrived at Suzanne Ianni's house on a January morning just before sunrise. Luckily, I was dressed. I was having some coffee. So my husband answered the door, and I'm looking out, and I saw two black SUVs, a police car, and I said, oh, they're here. Ianni knew that federal agents would come looking for her.

It was just a matter of time. Even so, nothing prepared her for the moment they said, you're under arrest. They said, no laces. I'm like, okay, I hang myself over trespassing, you know. She and hundreds like her have been charged with illegally entering the Capitol and disorderly conduct. The criminal complaint against her opens with a picture of her on a bus with Trump supporters on their way to Washington.

Then on the next page, there's a photograph of her inside the Capitol, fist raised, looking as though she's shouting. Ianni is one of the original members of a Boston group. Super Happy Fun America, which is a center-right, civil rights activist organization. But Super Happy Fun America is a lot more complicated than that. It has ties to far-right extremists, and experts say it's been something of a gateway to more radical groups. The group and Ianni deny this is the case, but a handful of its members, in addition to IANI, are facing charges related to January 6th. IANI was arrested

in January, and it wasn't until May that prosecutors showed up with an offer. Take it or leave it. They're trying to scare all Trump supporters, all conservatives. Her deal was basically this. If she pleaded guilty to one of the charges, turned over all her social media, and answered all their questions about January 6th, all conservatives. Her deal was basically this. If she pleaded guilty to one of the charges, turned over all her social media, and answered all their questions about January 6th, she might avoid jail time. Ianni says she thinks what they really wanted was information, specifically about members of the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys. They always offer to escort us down because despite what's being said about the Proud Boys, they're really just a bunch of guys who put their bodies in between us and Antifa.

Antifa is short for anti-fascist. The Justice Department is interested in the Proud Boys because so many of them are connected to the events of January 6th. 32 Proud Boys have been arrested and charged. That's more than any other organized group. Ianni, for her part, said she'd turned down the plea. As soon as they heard what they expected from me, I told them, no way. It turns out Ianni's plea offer wasn't unique. A dozen attorneys we spoke to said prosecutors floated almost identical deals to their clients, too. When people get caught up in violent protests in this country, prosecutors often roll out something called a Deferred Prosecution Agreement. They offered them to

protesters in Portland last summer, and essentially it says, stay out of trouble and we'll give you a pass. But we couldn't find anyone charged with federal crimes related to January 6th who was offered a Deferred Plea Agreement. Former DHS official and lawyer Juliette Kayyem says that's because the Justice Department has decided on a legal strategy of shock and awe. You arrest everyone and you charge everyone. You start with the FBI and the investigations that are going on and you keep them coming.

And every jurisdiction has these cases. And if I sound harsh, good, because this was serious. I mean, this was an attempt to undermine a valid American election. The Justice Department typically doesn't comment on ongoing cases, and they declined to speak in this case. So NPR interviewed four dozen defense attorneys, prosecutors, and defendants, and they described a Justice Department under incredible stress, struggling with everything from evidence to assigning prosecutors to cases. Let's start with the problem of evidence. There's too much of it. Every one of those people was carrying a smartphone. Every one of them.

And they're all taking pictures and videos and on different platforms. Greg Hunter is a defense attorney, and he's working on more than a dozen January 6 cases. And he said all those videos, the tweets, the Facebook posts have made it harder for the prosecution. The evidence is significantly more complicated for them than they thought it was going to be. Some of the defense attorneys NPR spoke to said they tried to resolve their client's cases back in February, and prosecutors told them to wait. They said federal prosecutors told them they needed to assemble the evidence, so defendants shouldn't expect any plea offers until late April.

And at the time, that seemed like a million years. And late April came and went. I got one of the very first plea offers. I think I was third with Fitzsimons. Fitzsimons. Kyle Fitzsimons. He was filmed at the Capitol with blood running down his face, dressed in one of those spocks that butchers wear. Kyle Fitzsimons is a guy who had moved to Maine seeking, in his words, a life that was not in a multicultural hellhole. A couple of years ago, Fitzsimons told a local town meeting that immigrants were robbing Maine of everything that made it special. Keep Maine, Maine. Keep Maine, Maine. Keep Maine, Maine, he starts.

The state motto is I lead. Dorigo, okay? It's got two white laborers on it. Don't put them at the end of the line. After January 6th, he hired Greg Hunter as his lawyer. He was most impressed that my name is Hunter and that the U.S. attorney was last name of Wolf. And so he was very impressed that I was

going to be able to hunt the wolf. And I hadn't heard anything like that since about the third grade. So Fitzsimons looked like he was going to get one of the first plea deals, but it was moving slowly. A Justice Department attorney told me on background that part of the reason for the snail's pace was top officials were concerned someone might go easy on a defendant and end up setting the bar for everyone else. That slow pace has caused another problem. Defense attorneys NPR spoke to said clients like Fitzsimons, who are in lockup, are getting angrier. They bathe in each other's weird theories about stuff. They hear or misunderstand something about their own case, and that just ripples through all the other

defendants. There are about 50 January 6th defendants in that D.C. lockup, and Hunter says the waves of misinformation inside that facility ended up convincing Fitzsimons that the sheer act of holding him was wrong. His family declined to speak with NPR, but what we do know is that he eventually refused the plea deal and ended up firing Hunter. The smart way to go here is to fire your lawyer, see if you can get some money back from that retainer, and force the overworked federal public defender's office to defend you because they can't possibly get all of these cases done. In fact, federal authorities say there are at least 300 more people they want to arrest

and charge, and they're hunting for them now. We went to Virginia to meet one of the people the FBI might be looking for. And he didn't seem too bothered by the Justice Department's decision to play hardball. He was even happy to play us videos on his phone from that day, videos that appear to show him inside the rotunda of the Capitol. Stop the steal! Stop the steal! Yeah, that's me. I was saying stuff. I wasn't quiet. I'm not an angel, you know, so... And while he hasn't been arrested or charged,

he says he's not worried about the FBI showing up on his doorstep. No, I don't worry about it, because I didn't do anything really trespass. In the end, the Justice Department is trying to do more than just hold people accountable. The resolution of these cases could help Americans understand what really happened on January 6th. Was it a protest that went off the rails or a calculated plan to launch a coup? Finding an answer to that could take a while. The majority of the trials are unlikely to start before 2022.

NPR investigative correspondent Dina Temple Raston. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.