‘Deck chairs on the Titanic’: How Trump already upended DOJ’s ongoing efforts to arrest and prosecute January 6 rioters

CNN — President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t been sworn in yet, but his looming return has already upended hundreds of pending prosecutions against his supporters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and has disrupted the ongoing effort to arrest more rioters. The official also said investigators have decided to use their limited time and resources to go after January 6 fugitives suspected of attacking police, meaning lower-level rioters who breached the Capitol but didn’t contribute to the violence will likely never be charged or held accountable. “In a very real and practical way, agents and prosecutors have to consider whether it’s the right expenditure of resources, and whether it’s ethically sound, to go forward with a prosecution if there’s a good chance it’s going to be stopped by the president,” said former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who is now CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst. The payoff is the satisfaction of living up to the oath that you took, doing something positive for your country, mitigating a threat, and standing up for the fair application of the rule of law.” While Trump has said he plans to issue pardons on day one, he hasn’t said much about whether he also wants to shut down the January 6 probe itself – which experts say would be a major abuse of power, but within his authority. “Morale took a hit, but it’s not like we’re going to stop, or like we got any weaker,” the federal law enforcement official told CNN.