“I will ensure that the Special Counsel receives the resources to conduct this work quickly and completely,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland, shown Friday at a press conference at the DOJ.
Pool photo by Jerry Lampen

However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., will retain control over investigations and prosecutions of people “physically present on the Capitol grounds” on Jan. 6, 2021, Garland’s order said. About 900 people at or near the Capitol that day have been charged criminally with offenses ranging from trespassing to seditious conspiracy against the U.S. government.

No one has yet been charged in the broader Jan. 6 or election interference probes.

Centralizing the Trump-focused investigations under a special counsel is a move meant to help instill confidence in the independence of any prosecutorial decision in the explosive investigations. In 2017, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to oversee the investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign links to Russia. In 2020, Attorney General William Barr appointed then-U.S. Attorney John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe.