(Ken Silva, Headline USA) US Attorney Matthew Graves gave a long-winded speech Saturday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising, recounting what he said were “scenes reminiscent of a medieval battle.”
Along with his melodramatic account of the roughly four-hour riot, Graves also suggested that thousands of additional protestors are to be charged for simply stepping on Capitol grounds.
DC U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves is making clear that the DOJ is now going to target Americans who were around the Capitol on J6 but did not enter the building pic.twitter.com/bj4i3QfHe9
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) January 6, 2024
“We have used our prosecutorial discretion to primarily focus on those who entered the building or those who engaged in violent or corrupt conduct on Capitol grounds. But if a person knowingly entered the restricted area without authorization, they had already committed a federal crime,” Graves said.
“Make no mistake, thousands of people occupied an area that they were not authorized to be present in in the first place.”
The Justice Department has already made several high-profile arrests of defendants who stepped on Capitol grounds but didn’t enter the building.
Those include Infowars host Owen Shroyer, whose presence on Capitol grounds violated a deferred prosecution agreement he had from 2019—when he was arrested for shouting during a House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing.
Infamous Jan. 6 provocateur Ray Epps has also been charged with only being on Capitol grounds. In Epps’s case, many have accused the government of letting him off easily, as prosecutors have admitted that Epps’s conduct was “felonious” that day. Among other actions, he encouraged others to go into the Capitol and he pushed a sign into a group of Capitol Police officers.
But when it comes to additional prosecutions, conservative journalist Julie Kelly noted that the DOJ might be checked by the courts. Kelly noted that an appeals tribunal recently subjected prosecutors to probing questions over their decision to charge Couy Griffin, a defendant who stepped on Capitol grounds after initial barriers and signage were torn down.
“During oral arguments on Griffin’s appeal last month, a three-judge panel sounded skeptical that the government had met its burden of proof in Griffin’s case,” Kelly wrote of that case.
“Debate centered on whether Griffin knew the vice president was still on the premises when he entered and remained on the west side.”
In another case, Judge Christopher Cooper acquitted Jeremy Groseclose on a trespassing charge on the grounds that government didn’t prove he knew he was in an unauthorized area.
“The government presented almost no evidence that Groseclose knew that Vice President Pence was inside the Capitol that day,” Cooper wrote on January 5, according to Kelly.
Kelly lamented that a few adverse court rulings probably won’t curb the DOJ’s zeal for charging as many Trump supporters as possible.
“Graves accomplished his mission of accelerating the government’s campaign of fear related to January 6 and its relentless criminalization of political activity,” she said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
