J6 arrests increased 24% in 2024: DOJ report

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has admitted that it arrested 1,572 people in 2024 for the alleged crime of being at the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot—a 24 percent increase from the previous year.

The DOJ report revealed that the FBI charged another 11 Jan. 6 suspects between Nov. 6 and Dec. 6, 2024. The year’s total of 1,572 total is a 24.3 percent jump from 2023 and 75 percent more than in the previous two years. While President-elect Donald Trump has said he will “most likely” pardon on the first day of his presidency, those convicted of J6 offenses, the DOJ has continued to focus on J6 participants and increased the tempo of its arrests.

The report noted that almost 1,000 people have pleaded guilty to J6 related charges, with 68 percent of these being misdemeanors and 32 percent felonies. Of those felony charges, 53 percent involved alleged assault of a peace officer and 40 percent were related to impeding police officers during civil unrest.

Of those 1,068 convicted, 60 percent went to jail and 14 percent were subject to house arrest. The DOJ acknowledged that five people convicted actually ended up serving less time in prison as result of a the US Supreme Court decision that overturned the widespread use of 18 U.S. Code 1512(c)(2) that allows for punishment of up to 20 years imprisonment for disrupting an official event.

Jalise Middleton’s petition to not report to prison until she recovered from knee surgery was turned down by US District Judge Randolph Moss, who said physical infirmity should not be a bar to serving time in jail and she would have access to good healthcare facilities while serving her time, Blaze Media reported.

“Although Ms. Middleton stated that her condition worsened in the last two weeks, her knee has been a problem for years, yet she waited until a week before her surrender date to schedule the long-required surgery,” Moss ruled in a four-page response to her request.

“Among other things, on October 22, 2024, the court allowed defendants to self-surrender in order to get their affairs in order, and, to the extent necessary (and urgent), knee surgery would seem to qualify as such an endeavor,” Moss wrote. “Had Ms. Middleton taken advantage of this opportunity, she could have had the surgery many weeks — as opposed to days — before her surrender date.” Moss sentenced both Jalise and husband, Mark Middleton, to years in prison. The couple says they were praying at the J6 event and were assaulted by police. 

A report from the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz admitted that there were 26 “confidential human sources” working for the FBI on Jan. 6. Three of them were specifically asked by the FBI to be at the event. None of them have been prosecuted, though a few of them did enter the Capitol Building.