WASHINGTON — The amount of evidence collected as part of the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection rivals what the Hubble telescope has amassed in its three-decade orbit. And sorting through it all has ground many of its criminal cases to a halt.
To speed things along, U.S. attorneys and public defenders have teamed up to create a massive, searchable database to comb through the thousands of social media messages, videos and other evidence produced when the assault on the Capitol was broadcast to the world by journalists, bystanders and the rioters themselves.
"In many even federal criminal cases you have one notebook of evidence, right? You have maybe 50 to 100 exhibits. In a big white-collar case, you might have several notebooks," said Loyola Law School professor and former U.S. Attorney Laurie Levenson. "This is astronomically more."
