The U.S. attorney who has overseen the largest investigation in Department of Justice history is stepping down before Donald Trump can fire him.
But far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says the resignation of Matthew Graves “is not the end for him.”
The top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C, has spearheaded the prosecution of hundreds of people in connection with the January 6 attack on the Capitol — defendants Trump has promised to pardon as soon as he enters office.
“We are about to take over and we’re going to be in charge, and he should pay for what he’s done to these people,” Greene told right-wing media network Real America’s Voice on Monday.
“He doesn’t get to resign and run away,” she added. “He should be held accountable for the absolute misery and lives that have been destroyed from these January 6 defendants and their families. We’re talking about marriages have been destroyed, families have been destroyed, careers have been destroyed, and these people have spent time — years now — in prison.”
More than 1,600 people have been charged in connection with a mob’s assault on the Capitol — fuelled by Trump’s bogus narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen from him — and are now awaiting potential pardons for alleged crimes that were live-streamed to millions of viewers.
Nearly 1,100 people have been sentenced for their crimes, including sentences handed down for the first-ever convictions for treason-related seditious conspiracy charges in decades.
Nearly 600 people were charged with assaulting or obstructing law enforcement — including nearly 200 people charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.
Defendants, many of whom have been banned from Washington, D.C., are also increasingly asking judges for permission to attend Trump’s inauguration, while judges have quietly been raising alarms about looming pardons for some of the worst offenders.
Graves announced plans to step down January 16, four days before Trump takes office.
“Because politically motivated violence and destruction rip at the fabric of our society, Mr. Graves made federally prosecuting such crimes a priority,” the Justice Department said in a statement Monday.
Greene unsuccessfully tried to impeach Graves last year, echoing Trump’s remarks about the agency’s “weaponization” while accusing Graves of “maliciously prosecuting” rioters and refusing to go after “real criminals.”
Greene has also protested the detentions of January 6 defendants locked up in a Washington jail, some of whom “were so violent that their pretrial release would pose a danger to the public,” according to federal prosecutors.
One of those men, Shane Jenkins, hurled “nine different objects” at police officers, “including a solid wooden desk drawer ... a flagpole, a metal walking stick, and a broken wooden pole with a spear-like point,” according to court filings.
Another man, Jonathan G. Mellis, used a “large wooden stick like a sword and stabbed at the faces and heads of officers at least five times, violently striking some officers in the face, head, neck, and body area,” prosecutors said.
“Some engaged in violence, some fought with police, but at this point in time, they have served their time and are past that,” Greene told Real America’s Voice.
She also suggested that she would take aim at federal judges “that harness the power of their benches in their courtrooms” and gave “horrific sentences for these people who did nothing but protest an election.”
