Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in an internal email ordered a review of the matter, directing employees to hand over files, emails, and other documents.
Martin wrote that the use of the charge, obstruction of an official proceeding, was “a great failure of our office.” He ordered the supervisors to provide a preliminary report on the matter to him by Friday.
“We need to get to the bottom of it,” Martin wrote. He’s calling it the “1512 Project,” because the offense falls under that section of the law.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), did not respond to a request for more information.
Section 1512 of U.S. law prohibits people from obstructing, influencing, or impeding any official proceeding, or attempting to do so. It carries a prison term of up to 20 years.
Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington charged about 260 people who were in or around the Capitol on Jan. 6 with obstructing an official proceeding.
Former police officer Joseph Fischer, one of the accused, challenged the charge in court. That led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that concluded prosecutors were interpreting the law too broadly.
Martin, since taking over the U.S. attorney’s office following Trump’s inauguration, has signed numerous court documents asking judges to dismiss charges against Jan. 6 defendants, pointing to Trump’s executive order.
Martin, who attended Trump’s rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, has served on the board of a group called the Patriot Freedom Project, which raised money to support Jan. 6 defendants and their families. He’s also listed in court filings as an attorney for at least three defendants, including one who pleaded guilty to felony charges.
Martin has written about Jan. 6 on his blog, saying he watched thousands of hours of video from that day.
“If you watch it for a while you realize that 99.9% of it is normal people doing normal things: sauntering around and through the Capitol grounds and building,” he wrote.
ROGER STONE: The Incarceration of Pardoned J6er Jeremy Brown Is a Travesty
No comments:
Post a Comment