Thread by @latimes

The amount of evidence collected as part of the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection rivals what the Hubble telescope has amassed in its three-decade orbit.

And sorting through it all has ground many of its criminal cases to a halt.

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Some judges are getting antsy about how slow the cases are moving. And some Republican politicians have used the delays to criticize the Biden administration’s handling of the cases, saying it is time to wrap up the investigations and move on.

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U.S. attorneys are under immense pressure to successfully prosecute as many of these cases as possible and don’t want to risk defendants getting off on a technicality because they weren’t given all the evidence against them.

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“In many even federal criminal cases you have one notebook of evidence, right? You have maybe 50 to 100 exhibits. In a big white-collar case, you might have several notebooks,” said former U.S. Atty. Laurie Levenson.

“This is astronomically more.”

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To speed things along, U.S. attorneys and public defenders have teamed up to create a massive, searchable database to comb through the thousands of social media messages, videos, news reports and other evidence produced during the assault on the Capitol.

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At this rate, it may take years to prosecute all the cases.

The Justice Department continues to announce indictments nearly weekly. And is still trying to identify at least 350 more people.

Read more from @sarahdwire at
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