Justice: Riot probe among largest ever
Prosecutors seek to delay most cases by months
U.S. prosecutors on Friday sketched out the scope of the investigation in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, asking for courts to delay most cases by at least two months after being pressed by a handful of defendants and some judges to speed up trials and plea offers.
"The investigation and prosecution of the Capitol Attack will likely be one of the largest in American history, both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of the evidence," the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Columbia wrote in court filings in seeking a delay before turning over evidence to defendants.
In a sign of the hurdles facing the government, a judge Friday ordered the release on bond of one of the highest-profile defendants, saying he did not see evidence that Thomas
E. Caldwell of Virginia entered the Capitol or "that he was planning to do so that day."
Charges have been brought against 312 people and are expected against at least 100 more, according to court officials and prosecutors.
Investigators have executed more than 900 electronic and physical search warrants, and amassed more than 15,000 hours of law enforcement surveillance and bodycamera video, 1,600 electronic devices and 210,000 tips, prosecutors said.
With the volume of cases and evidence only growing, "the unusual complexity of the Capitol Attack investigation warrants" postponement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy and others wrote in a filing Friday involving "key figure" Caldwell, who is charged with eight other alleged associates of the right-wing, anti-government Oath Keepers group.
Moving too fast will make prosecution "impossible, or result in a miscarriage of justice," Rakoczy said.
The riots that led to five deaths, assaults on about 140 police officers and the evacuation of Congress as it convened to confirm the 2020 presidential election results have already generated about as many federal criminal cases in a single event than the U.S. District Court in the District handled in all of 2020, about 290.
Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell expressed confidence in the court's capabilities, noting it managed a flood of more than 200 habeas corpus petitions when the Supreme Court maintained after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that it had jurisdiction to hear legal challenges from enemy combatants detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But how much time investigators will have to dig is another question.
In a sign of the probe's vast scope, several unsealed search warrants have requested subject's records dating to Nov. 1 and at least one Feb. 25 warrant sought all of one individual's Facebook account information dating to Sept. 1. Magistrates have authorized the FBI to search such information for all relevant material to be copied and retained while sealing the rest pending further court order or potential use to authenticate evidence at trial.
New Attorney General Merrick Garland, at a Feb. 21 Senate confirmation hearing, called the investigation into the Capitol insurrection a top priority, and the department's designation Friday of the Jan. 6 events as the incident came on his second day on the job. The federal Speedy Trial Act generally requires trials to begin with 70 days of a criminal charge. The deadline can be postponed, or time "excluded," for many reasons, including to hear pretrial motions, await the production of evidence and plea discussions.
Under the plan proposed Friday, prosecutors will turn over evidence related to about 55 detained defendants in 30 to 60 days, to be followed later by evidentiary disclosures to about 250 other defendants on a rolling basis.
The majority of defendants are charged with misdemeanor trespassing.
A late-afternoon burst of buying helped nudge several U.S. stock indexes to all-time highs Friday, despite a pullback in Big Tech companies as bond yields headed higher.
The S&P 500 rose 0.1 percent after having been in the red for most of the day. The benchmark index also notched its second straight weekly gain. Financial and industrial companies led a broad rally, outweighing the slide in technology and communications stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 index of smaller company stocks also hit all-time highs for the second day in a row. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell, shedding some of its gains from a day earlier.
The bond market was the dominant force in pulling tech stocks mostly downward, because as yields push interest rates higher, they make highflying stocks look expensive. After remaining stable for most of the week, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped to 1.62 percent from 1.52 percent a day earlier. Investors had sold off stocks late last week after that yield crossed above the 1.60 percent mark.
“Bond investors are trying to determine how much future growth is in the economy and what that means for inflation,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. “It could be over the course of this year or the next couple in terms of trying to find the right level.”
The S&P 500 rose 4 points to 3,943.34, extending its winning streak to a fourth straight day. The Dow added 293.05 points, or 0.9 percent, to 32,778.64, lifted by industrial stocks like Boeing and Caterpillar. The Nasdaq dropped 78.81 points, or 0.6 percent, to 13,319.86.
The Russell 2000 picked up 14.25 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,352.79 and ended the week 7.3 percent higher. That blows away the S&P 500’s 2.6 percent gain
for the week.
The stock indexes were mostly lower for much of the day as technology stocks, which had spent most of the week holding steady or climbing, fell broadly as bond yields rose.
Apple fell 0.8 percent, Facebook dropped 2 percent, Google’s parent company slid 2.4 percent and Microsoft lost 0.6 percent. These giant tech companies soared last year as investors bet that pandemicquarantined Americans would spend even more time online. But as the pandemic eases this year, and bond yields rise, more expensive stocks such as these have struggled.
The increase in bond yields comes as President Joe Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, which will include $1,400 checks for most Americans as well as additional payments for those with children or those who collected unemployment benefits last year. President Biden also laid out a plan, in a primetime speech Thursday, to expand vaccine eligibility to all Americans by May 1.
These moves have given investors confidence that the U.S. and global economy will likely experience a strong recovery in the second half of the year as well as potentially increase the rate of inflation.
Wall Street got another sign Friday that inflation is creeping higher. The Labor Department said its producer price index, which measures inflation before it reaches consumers, rose by 0.5 percent last month following a record jump of 1.3 percent the month before. Over the past year, wholesale prices are up 2.8 percent, the largest 12-month gain at the wholesale level in more than two years.
Some economists fear that inflation, which has been dormant over the past decade, could begin to rise under the extra demand generated by the government’s new $1.9 trillion stimulus package signed into law Thursday. Others disagree, pointing out that there are 9.5 million fewer jobs in the American economy than there were before the pandemic hit a year ago, and argue that unemployment will keep a lid on inflation.