The Justice Department is considering charging up to 200 more people for their alleged involvement in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report. The new figures include 60 people suspected of assaulting or impeding police officers.
Around 1,600 people have already faced federal charges relating to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 600 who allegedly assaulted or resisted police. Nearly 200 of the defendants were charged with carrying a dangerous weapon on Capitol grounds and 153 were accused of destruction of government property.
The news comes as President-elect Trump is set to be sworn in as the country’s next president in two weeks. In December, Trump said he wanted to pardon the January 6 rioters on his first day in office and stated that those on the January 6 committee in Congress belonged in jail.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the Justice Department has conducted one of the most complex and resource-intensive investigations in its history, analyzing massive amounts of physical and digital data, identifying and arresting hundreds of people, and initiating prosecutions and securing convictions.
President Biden was asked on Sunday if he still considered Trump a threat to democracy, and he replied, “We’ve got to get back to establishing basic democratic norms. I think what he did was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful that we are beyond that.”