Acting US Attorney for DC initiates 'review' of office's Jan. 6 investigation
The acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., has initiated a "review" into the office's prosecutions of the more than 1500 rioters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, multiple sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News on Monday.
Ed Martin, a promoter of President Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" campaign who was himself seen on Capitol grounds during the riot, has ordered prosecutors in the office to turn over all records related to their work on the cases.
The review appears to center on the office's decision to bring a felony obstruction charge against several hundred rioters that a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer amounted to an overreach in use of the Enron-era statute.
Martin's email to staffers in the office, described by a source to ABC News, is likely to further deplete morale following President Trump's sweeping pardons last week for nearly all of the rioters charged in connection with the Capitol attack.
Several career assistant U.S. attorneys resigned as a result of the pardons, after seeing years of their work virtually washed away with the stroke of a pen.
