Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022, in advance of the one year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, Pool)
The Justice Department plans to prosecute anyone who was “criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday, speaking more expansively than he has previously about a federal criminal investigation that appears to have moved far beyond the rioters who attacked the Capitol.
In an exclusive interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, Garland said that the televised hearings by the House Jan. 6 committee highlighted “the truth of what happened…and what a risk it meant for our democracy.” And he acknowledged that Justice Department investigators learned things from the congressional testimony.
“Look, the Justice Department has been doing the most wide-ranging investigation in its history,” he said. “And the committee is doing an enormously wide-ranging investigation as well. It is inevitable that there will be things that they find before we have found them. And it’s inevitable that there will be things we find that they haven’t found. That’s what happens when you have two wide-ranging investigations going on at the same time.”
