January 6 Prosecutions – A Timeline
By Many of us would love to see Donald Trump and his minions in the dock and then in orange jumpsuits. There’s a lot of understandable complaining about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland will give us that satisfaction.
I’ve wondered about the Watergate timeline. The prosecutions came after the congressional hearings. Here’s a comparison between Watergate and January 6.
February 7, 1973 – Senate votes to establish Watergate committee
99 days
Hearings May 17 to August 7
206 days
March 1, 1974 – The “Watergate Seven” are indicted—H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John N. Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson—for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and other figures had already pleaded guilty.
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July 1, 2021 – House votes to establish January 6 committee
343 days
Hearings June 9 through June 23, 2022
If we add 206 days, we see that indictments should be handed down on January 16, 2023. Or, if we want to consider the interval between the establishment of the committee and the indictments, the indictments should have come down May 2, 2022.
Jack Goldsmith details the three decisions Merrick Garland must make. Freebie link.