'Our work will continue': Merrick Garland speaks after Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convictions

04 May 2023

United States Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday held a press conference at which he reflected on the convictions of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were instrumental players in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Proud Boys founder Enrico Tarrio along with three of his "lieutenants" were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to their actions to keep former President Donald Trump in power.

The Associated Press noted that "jurors cleared a fifth defendant — Dominic Pezzola — of the sedition charge, though he was convicted of other serious felonies. The judge excused the jury without delivering a verdict on some counts — including another conspiracy charge for Pezzola — after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision."

Garland, who rarely gives lengthy public speeches, praised the Department of Justice for conducting the unprecedented probes into the attempted coup following the 2020 election.

"Those defendants and a fifth member of the Proud Boys were all convicted of felonies, including obstructing Congress's certification of the 2020 presidential election results and conspiring to prevent Congress and federal officers from discharging their duties. The evidence presented at trial detailed the extent of the violence at the Capitol on January 6th, and the central role these defendants played in setting into motion the unlawful events of that day," Garland said. "Today's verdict makes clear that the Justice Department will do everything in its power to defend the American people and American democracy. Since the January 6th attack, the Justice Department has conducted one of the largest, most complex and most resource-intensive investigations in our history."

Garland touched upon the scope and scale of what the DOJ pursued.

"We have worked to analyze massive amounts of physical and digital data. We have recovered devices, decrypted, electronic messages, triangulated phones, and poured through tens of thousands of hours of video. We have also benefited from tens of thousands of tips we receive from the public. Following these digital and physical footprints, we were able to identify hundreds of people who, often masked, took part in the unlawful conduct that day," he explained.

Garland also recalled the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6th.

"I am grateful to the Department's, prosecutors, FBI agents, investigators, analysts, and others who have worked on these cases with extraordinary diligence, skill, integrity, and courage. Over the past two years, the department has secured more than six hundred convictions. For a wide fraught range of criminal conduct on January 6th, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. We have secured the convictions of defendants who fought, punched, tackled, and even tased police officers who were defending the capitol that day, who crushed one officer in a door and dragged another down a flight of stairs who attacked law enforcement officers with chemical agents that burned their eyes and skin, and who assaulted officers with pipes, poles, and other dangerous or deadly weapons," the attorney general noted.

"We have secured the convictions of defendants who obstructed the certification of a presidential election as well as the subsequent criminal investigation in the events of January 6th. And now after three trials, we have secured the convictions of leaders of both the proud boys and the oath keepers. For Seditious conspiracy, specifically conspiring to oppose by force, the lawful transfer of presidential power," Garland added. "Our work will continue."

Watch below or at this link.

From Your Site Articles