Every single piece of evidence released on the events of Jan. 6 only makes things worse. In the past six months, it’s become clear that intelligence agencies and police repeatedly downplayed the threat represented by Trump’s white supremacist supporters. It’s become obvious that both Trump’s White House and members of Congress were well aware of the plots to interrupt the counting of the electoral votes and the threat to Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and other officials. And it’s become clear that rather than putting the brakes on these threats, Republicans did everything they could to encourage violence.
‘Most of all, we’ve seen that the television coverage of that day barely hinted at the level of aggressive brutality used by those smashing their way into the Capitol. Even as Republicans in Congress have tried to pass off that day as a “tourist visit,” newly released videos continue to show additional incidents of extreme violence.
To make sure some of these images of assault and destruction don’t fall through the cracks, and to assemble the images into our still expanding understanding of that awful day, Politico reports that the Justice Department has set aside $6.1 million to create a database of Jan. 6 information which will be used in ongoing prosecutions.
The DOJ has turned to consulting firm Deloitte to stitch together video from security cams, police body cams, news footage, and thousands of hours helpfully recorded by the insurgents themselves. These will be interwoven with individual pictures. The goal is to tag all the people and locations in these videos, as well as putting them on a timeline. That way prosecutors will be able to pull up all images involving a suspect, or all events taking place at a set location, or all images within a defined time period.
Which seems like not just a good tool, but a necessary one when dealing with hundreds of suspects already indicated. But there’s one other feature of the contract that many could find frustrating — the overall contract, of which this database is a small part, extends for six years.
So don’t expect this to be wrapped up soon. But do expect more evidence to continue appearing that shows how “nice” these “tourists” really were.
‘Most of all, we’ve seen that the television coverage of that day barely hinted at the level of aggressive brutality used by those smashing their way into the Capitol. Even as Republicans in Congress have tried to pass off that day as a “tourist visit,” newly released videos continue to show additional incidents of extreme violence.
To make sure some of these images of assault and destruction don’t fall through the cracks, and to assemble the images into our still expanding understanding of that awful day, Politico reports that the Justice Department has set aside $6.1 million to create a database of Jan. 6 information which will be used in ongoing prosecutions.
The DOJ has turned to consulting firm Deloitte to stitch together video from security cams, police body cams, news footage, and thousands of hours helpfully recorded by the insurgents themselves. These will be interwoven with individual pictures. The goal is to tag all the people and locations in these videos, as well as putting them on a timeline. That way prosecutors will be able to pull up all images involving a suspect, or all events taking place at a set location, or all images within a defined time period.
Which seems like not just a good tool, but a necessary one when dealing with hundreds of suspects already indicated. But there’s one other feature of the contract that many could find frustrating — the overall contract, of which this database is a small part, extends for six years.
So don’t expect this to be wrapped up soon. But do expect more evidence to continue appearing that shows how “nice” these “tourists” really were.