But in recent days, in a sign of growing tension, parallel investigations have clashed with each other, as defense lawyers and prosecutors in one of the most prominent criminal cases – the Proud Boys Uprising – have reached a rare point of agreement: that the committee efforts cause headaches in the normal course of regular prosecution. At a hearing Wednesday in federal district court in Washington, D.C., the two opposing sides joined forces to ask a judge to leave some space between the case and the commission’s work and to delay the trial, which is set to begin in August. Judge Timothy J. Kelly eventually accepted the request, saying the Proud Boys’ trial would begin now in December. As part of his decision, Judge Kelly noted the committee’s role in the delay. “Every party before me believes that the trial should continue because of the activities of the January 6 commission,” Judge Kelly said. He noted that although one of the Proud Boys’ defendants – Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the group – opposed the delay, the adjournment was “the first thing all parties agreed on in this case”. It was perhaps inevitable that tensions would arise between the two simultaneous investigations, in similar fields of research, by separate levels of government. The Ministry of Justice has been at loggerheads in recent weeks with the committee over access to copies of interviews conducted by the House panel, with the committee signaling that it could start sharing material with federal prosecutors next month, while hiding other material until her investigation is completed in September. But the Proud Boys case is the first of more than 820 criminal cases linked to the Capitol attack, in which the competing interests of the House committee and the Department of Justice have become a legal issue. From the beginning, the two surveys had different purposes and were guided by different rules. According to the commission’s own account, the commission’s inquiry was intended to investigate as far as possible the roots of the violence in the Capitol, and ultimately to propose legislation to prevent something similar from happening again. His investigators have provided relatively free summonses and witnesses, although dozens of people – especially those close to former President Donald J. Trump refused to comply with his demands. The Justice Department, on the other hand, has a narrower, albeit potentially more consistent, goal in mind: to find out if anyone linked to the Capitol attack or Mr Trump’s various attempts to overthrow the election should be charged with federalism. crimes. His researchers are bound by rules that require high standards of proof even before they begin to gather evidence. Problems in the Proud Boys case began this month, shortly after prosecutors filed charges against five top members of the far-right group. The accusations came at an extremely difficult time: just three days before the Parliamentary committee held its long-awaited first public hearing. UPDATED June 21, 2022, 6:52 p.m. ET As the hearing focused closely on the Proud Boys’ role in the Capitol attack, the group’s lawyers were outraged, immediately claiming in court hearings and documents that the Justice Department had consulted with the commission to increase attention to its findings. “No objective observer would deny the reasonable conclusion that the deposition of the insurgency allegations had a timeline to coincide with the selection committee hearing on television on the same subject,” wrote one of the Proud Boys’ lawyers. The Proud Boys also claimed that the wide-ranging hearings, which continue throughout the month and are likely to continue in July, irreparably strained the jury in Washington – or, as one of their lawyers said in a recent testimony, “Good , well-informed, informed, media-minded citizens of the District of Columbia. “ Prosecutors have denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Washington’s public relations have been made more than once. However, another point of contention has arisen between the House committee and the Ministry of Justice: the question of when the committee intends to publish up to 1,000 transcripts it has made from interviews with its witnesses. The committee suggested that the transfers be made public as early as July, after initially saying they might be released in September. But both dates upset Proud Boys’s lawyers, who, before Wednesday’s hearing, told Judge Kelly they were concerned about the minutes and released a jury close to their trial. Lawyers have also worried that there may be new details about their clients in the transfers that could further annoy the jurors or hurt their defense. At least two Proud Boys linked to the prosecution have been interviewed by the commission: Tarrio, who has been charged with spasmodic conspiracy, and Jeremy Bertino, who is listed in court records but is currently innocent. The government, for its own reasons, has also been concerned about what the transcripts may contain, and last week prosecutors filed court documents in the Proud Boys case that included a letter sent by the Justice Department to committee staff. In the two-page letter, department officials accused the commission of obstructing both future criminal cases and cases already under way, refusing to release the copies. Officials said they were particularly concerned that by hiding the transfers, the commission was making it difficult for prosecutors to assess the credibility of witnesses who may have spoken to the commission and appeared secretly before a large jury.
