The Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney who led prosecutions of over 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants is set to step down before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves will resign from his position on Jan. 16, he announced Monday. Under Graves, 1,572 defendants were charged with crimes related to their presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to his office.
“Serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has been the honor of a lifetime,” Graves said in a Monday statement. “I am deeply thankful to Congresswoman Holmes Norton for recommending me; to President Biden for nominating me; and to Attorney General Garland for placing his trust in me.”
United States Attorney Matthew M. Graves to Step Down January 16, 2025 https://t.co/OZuJvzoslI
— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) December 30, 2024
More than 250 of the defendants charged under Graves were impacted by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fisher v. United States, which found the DOJ stretched an obstruction law designed for financial crimes when it used it to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants.
“The Government’s reading of Section 1512 would intrude on that deliberate arrangement of constitutional authority over federal crimes, giving prosecutors broad discretion to seek a 20- year maximum sentence for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment—for example, three years for harassment under §1512(d)(1), or ten years for threatening a juror under §1503,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision.
Since the ruling, the government has abandoned the charge in 96 pending cases and decided it would not oppose dismissing the charge in 54 cases that were already decided. Five defendants had their sentences reduced as a result of the ruling, according to Grave’s office.
Graves recommended longer sentences for some non-violent Jan. 6 defendants than defendants with a more extensive criminal history.
During his time in office, crime in Washington, D.C., remained above pre-pandemic levels, with 274 homicides recorded in 2023. The district’s police chief Robert J. Contee III told the Washington Post in March 2023 that Graves’ reasoning for failing to prosecute 67% of arrests is “B.S.”
“I can promise you, it’s not MPD holding the bag on this,” he told the outlet.
Graves also declined to partner with special counsel David Weiss to prosecute Hunter Biden, he confirmed in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
Trump has promised to pardon Jan. 6 defendants. After the election, some defendants moved to delay proceedings in their cases in light of his statements.
“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump told NBC News on Dec. 8.
“I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system,” he told NBC News. “They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.’ And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed. For two years, they’ve been destroyed. But the system is a very nasty system.”
Article III Project founder Mike Davis wrote on X that Graves should “lawyer up.”
“You violated the constitutional rights of Americans,” he wrote.
“All 94 U.S. Attorneys across the country will be expected to resign — and most will do so prior to Jan. 20,” William Shipley, the defense attorney who represented a number of Jan. 6 defendants, wrote Monday on X. “Any still in office on Jan. 20 will be asked to tender their resignations — this has been business as usual since 1992.”
Featured Image Credit: The White House
