Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a member of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, expressed "great concern" Wednesday over the slow pace at which the Department of Justice is advancing its probe of the insurrection.
"I have been a part of many congressional investigations that have been contemporaneous with Department of Justice investigations," Schiff explained, "but it is unprecedented for Congress to be so far out ahead of the Justice Department in a complex investigation."
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Schiff was talking to MSNBC host Ari Melber about reports that the Justice Department was reportedly caught off guard by many of the disclosures made Tuesday by former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in public testimony before the Jan. 6 panel.
Melber asked Schiff about a New York Times op-ed in which former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said he was dismayed by Justice Department's halting investigation into Jan. 6. Weissmann wrote:
I have been involved in numerous high-profile investigations that engendered significant congressional interest, and what I have seen in this inquiry is not typical behavior from the Justice Department. Usually, department prosecutors and agents don’t want Congress jumping ahead of their investigation, and they work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. The department wants to interview witnesses first, and prosecutors make sure that targets are fully truthful about their own potential wrongdoing and that their testimony is corroborated; use tools to flip recalcitrant witnesses; and build a case without revealing evidence to other prospective witnesses — efforts that can falter if Congress is conducting private and public interviews that may inadvertently undermine the strongest possible criminal case.
Weissman said the usual collegiality and coordination between Congress and the Justice Department simply doesn't appear to be taking place.
As Schiff noted, the Justice Department is far better positioned than Congress to move quickly in such an inquiry.
"They've got potent tools to get information, they can enforce their own subpoenas in a way we can't," Schiff explained. "We have to go hat in hand to them to enforce our subpoenas or to enforce a criminal contempt and the idea that a year and a half after these events, they would not have talked to these witnesses--even the Fulton County District Attorney is way ahead of them--is I think cause for great concern."
Well, consider us concerned.