![]() LEONNIG: You know what we learned, to our shock, was that several critical, front-seat witnesses were not interviewed until the independent counsel, Jack Smith, was named. KELLY: Let me invite you to step back, and I'll just put the question that to me feels at the center of this, why does it matter? You're reporting you found a 15-month delay. And that potentially stymies a Justice Department investigation because if those accounts of those different witnesses are different, that can challenge any prosecution. They were interviewing these people before the Department of Justice ever considered talking to them. That congressional investigation interviewed a lot of senior White House aides to Donald Trump, DOJ officials. And we also know that, you know, Mary Louise, the January 6 committee, they were the first footprints in the snow. LEONNIG: I mean, we know from trials of the militia members that there were instructions from leadership there to delete your encrypted messages, delete your communications with people before January 6 and on that day. KELLY: Is there any sign that the 15-month delay damaged the case they have subsequently built? All of those things had a potential criminal statute that could be charged, and the department just simply did not want to look in that direction, according to multiple sources that we spoke with. ![]() The problems, however, was there was a lot of evidence that Donald Trump and at least many of his allies were possibly engaged in a crime - that efforts to pressure the vice president and efforts to basically pressure state officials to declare fraud in their state when there was none. And this department really - under Merrick Garland, really wanted to send a message, hey, politics is not what we're doing. LEONNIG: You know, what we learned was that inside the senior leadership of the Department of Justice, there was a lot of angst about restoring trust and faith in the Department of Justice - wanting so desperately for the public to view this entity as apolitical. LEONNIG: If you're thinking of the way in which Donald Trump led an effort to steal the 2020 election, the Department of Justice and the FBI together waited 15 months to launch a formal investigation into that matter. How long did the Justice Department wait to investigate Donald Trump and his allies in this case - the January 6 case? Hey there.ĬAROL LEONNIG: Hi, Mary Louise. What was behind that delay? And what might it signal, bigger picture? Let's talk it through it with The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig, one of the journalists who broke the story. According to a new investigation by The Washington Post, the FBI held off on looking into what Trump did in the lead-up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. ![]() As former President Donald Trump faces historic charges brought by the Justice Department related to his handling of classified documents, we are learning that he could have been subject to another DOJ probe much sooner.
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