Justice Dept. asks Jan. 6 panel for transcripts
WASHINGTON >> The Justice Department has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for transcripts of interviews it is conducting behind closed doors, including some with associates of former President Donald Trump, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The move is further evidence of the wide-ranging nature of the department's criminal inquiry into the events leading up to the 2021 assault on the Capitol and the role played by Trump and his allies as they sought to keep him in office after his defeat in the 2020 election.
The House committee, which has no power to pursue criminal charges, has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far, and the transcripts could be used by the Justice Department as evidence in potential criminal cases, to pursue new leads or as a baseline for new interviews conducted by federal law enforcement officials.
Aides to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chair of the committee, have yet to reach a final agree
ment with the Justice Department on what will be turned over, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the investigations.
On April 20, Kenneth A. Polite Jr., assistant attorney general for the criminal division, and Matthew M. Graves, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote to Timothy J. Heaphy, lead investigator for the House panel, advising him that some committee interviews “may contain information relevant to a criminal investigation we are conducting.”
Polite and Graves did not indicate the number of transcripts they were requesting or whether any interviews were of particular interest. In their letter, they made a broad request, asking that the panel “provide to us transcripts of these interviews, and of any additional interviews you conduct in the future.”
A person familiar with the matter said the transcripts were part of a negotiation between the committee and the Justice Department in which the panel was hoping that prosecutors would turn over evidence in exchange for the transcripts.
“The interviews in the possession of the committee are the property of the committee,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the panel. “I imagine that the committee will want to see any relevant evidence used with any relevant legal context.”
Asked about the Justice Department's request after this article was published, Thompson drew a distinction between handing over the committee's materials and allowing certain documents to be reviewed. He suggested that the panel had invested significant time and effort into conducting so many interviews and was reluctant to simply turn them over.
“We can't give them full access to our product,” he told reporters. “That would be premature at this point, because we haven't completed our own work.”
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment.
Thus far, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than 800 people on charges related to the storming of the Capitol. But over the past several months, the department has taken steps to widen its focus substantially to look at the planning for the rally Jan. 6 that preceded the riot while also signaling that its investigation would encompass the broader efforts to overturn the election. And in recent weeks, Attorney General Merrick Garland has bolstered the core team tasked with handling the most sensitive and politically combustible elements of the inquiry.
Several months ago, the department quietly detailed a veteran federal prosecutor from Maryland, Thomas Windom, to the department's headquarters. He is overseeing the politically fraught question of whether a case can be made related to other efforts to overturn the election, aside from the storming of the Capitol. That task could move the investigation closer to Trump and his inner circle.
A subpoena reviewed by The New York Times indicates that the Justice Department is exploring the actions taken by rally planners.
Prosecutors have begun asking for records about people who organized or spoke at several pro-Trump rallies after the 2020 election as well as anyone who provided security at those events, and about those who were deemed to be “VIP attendees.”
They are also seeking information about any members of the executive and legislative branches who may have taken part in planning or executing the rallies, or tried to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the election, as the subpoena put it.
The Justice Department's request for transcripts underscores how much ground the House committee has covered, and the unusual nature of a situation in which a wellstaffed congressional investigation has obtained testimony from key witnesses before a grand jury investigation.
The committee has signaled that it is considering making a criminal referral of Trump and some of his associates to the Justice Department, a step that could increase the pressure on Garland to pursue a case.
In a ruling in a lawsuit filed by the committee, a federal judge found in March that Trump and John Eastman, a lawyer who had advised him on how to overturn the election, most likely had committed felonies, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.
The committee has obtained documents and testimony from a wide range of witnesses, including more than a dozen Trump White House officials, rally planners and some rioters themselves.
Those witnesses have included White House lawyers; Justice Department officials; security officers; members of the National Guard; staff members close to former Vice President Mike Pence; members of Trump's personal legal team; Republicans who participated in a scheme to put forward proTrump electors from states won by Joe Biden; Trump's own family members; and leaders of right-wing militia groups.
At least 16 Trump allies have signaled they will not fully cooperate with the committee. Faced with such resistance, investigators on the panel have taken a page out of organized crime prosecutions and have quietly turned at least six lowerlevel Trump administration staff members into witnesses who have provided information about their bosses' activities.
Some of those witnesses — including an aide to Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff — have provided critical information.
The committee also has tried to obtain testimony from Republican members of Congress, and it issued subpoenas to five lawmakers last week. Those members have denigrated the panel's work but have declined to say whether they would participate in the interviews, scheduled for the end of May. One lawmaker, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, said he received his subpoena Monday and was reviewing it.