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“Based on the information we have received from the supervisors, it appears that things are moving forward. I hope to have plea offers for these parties soon,” US deputy lawyer Amanda Fretto said at a hearing on Friday in Washington, DC, for two Texans indicted in the attack on the Capitol.
“It could happen in a few weeks,” Fretto added, the first time a prosecutor has given a possible timetable for plea negotiations in open court.
There was no guilty plea, although legal experts believe many defendants will end up making a deal instead of going to a costly and difficult federal trial. For those who choose to go to trial, court backlogs and the sheer logistics of the sprawling investigation likely mean trials could be 12 to 15 months away, people with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
“ The most complex investigation ever ”
The Justice Department calls the investigation one of the “largest in American history,” and it has drained Department and FBI resources.
“The investigation and prosecution of the attack on Capitol Hill will likely be one of the most important in American history, both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of evidence,” said wrote on Friday the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice in the new documents.
The attack, they added, is “possibly the most complex investigation ever conducted by the Department of Justice”, citing the overwhelming workload of prosecutors and FBI agents.
More than 900 search warrants have been executed in almost every state, prosecutors said.
The public continues to respond to the government’s call for help in identifying suspects, which has proven to be essential in many cases. Authorities say they have received more than 210,000 pieces of advice and have already generated 80,000 witness and suspect interrogation reports.
Prosecutors said during court hearings this week that the DOJ is hiring an outside vendor to create a database of all materials, which includes a staggering number of video clips from the Capitol grounds.
The DOJ brings reinforcements
More than a dozen federal prosecutors from across the country have been sent to Washington to help with the effort, which is being led by the US attorney’s office in DC.
Several Washington-based prosecutors have also started dismissing their regular cases, but 15 are expected to continue working on more complex conspiracy cases that could take months of work.
The conspiracy investigations are continuing and “involve a large number of participants,” the Justice Department said in court documents on Friday.
Many suspected rioters on Capitol Hill have already been brought to justice and have pleaded not guilty. The next step is the “discovery” process where investigators prepare the evidence for trial and share it with the defendants.
The Justice Department’s demand to slow some cases of rioting on Capitol Hill is part of a larger fight over the discovery process.
Defense attorneys for some suspected rioters complained in court that they had not received enough documents to begin preparing adequately for trial or possible plea negotiations. Prosecutors handed over some documents but told judges they had more time.
Judge Trevor McFadden set their next hearing for April 29 and said he hoped he could “resolve the case” by that date, citing the possibility of guilty plea negotiations.
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