I’ve been following the January 6 investigations all along, noting things that maybe I know more about because of the law degree, but seeing pretty clear info out there telling us the DOJ was exploring J6 via grand jury at least as early as January 2022, months before the House committee began its hearings and much more info showing a consistent, ongoing probe.

Bear in mind that the Constitution requires indictments be brought by grand jury and the law requires the prosecutors to conduct the grand jury process in secret. The only way we ever know about these proceedings is witnesses — who are asked to be silent, but not required to do so under law — sometimes leak.

So I thought I’d put together some of the timeline I’ve noted along the way:

January 15, 2022 DOJ was seeking seditious conspiracy charges, indicating their plan to move upward through the ranks reached the point of identifying participants in conspiracy. Given the RICO style investigation, I deduce the evidence to reach the leaders who’ve been convicted of seditious conspiracy thus far came from the prosecutions of the J6 participants — see info on them here.

March 30, 2022 Someone leaked that for two months (i.e. beginning early February or late January 2022) DOJ had been subpoenaing officials around Trump to the grand jury. Mind you, a prosecutor doesn’t start a grand jury before they’ve gathered a significant amount of evidence, so if the grand jury was operating in January 2022, DOJ had been gathering evidence for some months prior to that. Again, note all of this was happening months before the House committee began airing hearings.

March 31, 2022 News of DOJ pursuit of those who organized and planned the Ellipse rally on January 6 breaks and also of subpoenas issued on the fake electors scheme

September 1, 2022 Two high level White House lawyers were subpoenaed and this article reveals a number of subpoenas were issued “in recent MONTHS” which means DOJ was also collecting evidence throughout the House committee hearings. I otherwise like Adam Schiff, but am really disappointed that he has continually lied about this. Also note, the article disingenuously mentions these as the highest level of people subpoenaed at that point — since the grand jury is conducted in secrecy, they’re the highest level the media knew about, but they couldn’t have known whether the list being offered was complete. See also.

September 23, 2022 Info on more subpoenas, including a reference to subpoenas issued in winter 2022 to Trump allies re planning Jan 6.

November 18, 2022 Jack Smith appointed special counsel. Note that all of the subpoenas and grand jury activities noted above happened BEFORE the special counsel appointment. He took charge of the DOJ staff who’d already been working on the case, starting with all the evidence already gathered. See here. Jack Smith DID NOT start over; the case did not “finally begin” with the special counsel.

DOJ had been actively pursuing evidence through all of 2022 and probably began something like summer of 2021.

I’m not sure why the media keeps conveniently forgetting their own reporting on the various stages of grand jury proceedings leaked by witnesses. Nor why they act as if they have no familiarity with either the Constitutional grand jury requirement or the law requiring secrecy by grand jurors, prosecutors, etc. But the misinformation that keeps flowing from these blindspots in reporting is damaging. It needs to stop.

When it comes to evidence gathering by the DOJ, it is always happening via a grand jury and silence signifies nothing except that prosecutors are obeying the law that forbids them to speak of the proceedings. The fact that the media or Adam Schiff know nothing about what they’re doing is meaningless given the requirement of secrecy.

I look at the timeline and see the DOJ working diligently on this case long before the popular view gives them credit for starting it. I’m following that DOJ is also running cases on anti-abortion laws in various states, on hate crimes in various states, on vote suppression in multiple states–and that’s all besides all of the normal caseload of federal crimes the DOJ prosecutes.

Looks to me like they’re doing the job. If you want a conviction to follow the indictment you’re so anxious for, let them take the time they need to gather all the evidence they need to get a guilty verdict.