For the land of free,

and the home of America.

For months, news has trickled out about the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

There are chilling images of rioters fighting with police, spraying chemicals, smashing doors and windows to break into the Capitol.

Hundreds of them have been charged with federal crimes in its aftermath.

The Justice Department has spent more than a year on one of the biggest and most complex criminal investigations

in its history. The amount of evidence against many of the insurrectionists is growing,

but sorting through it all has ground many of these criminal cases to a halt.

I'm Gustavo Oriano. You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times.

It's Tuesday, April 5th, 2022.

Today, in the first of a two-part series on the January 6th investigations,

why might take years to prosecute all the rioters who invaded the Capitol

and how difficult it'll be to make the charges stick?

No. invaded the capital and how difficult it'll be to make the charge it stick. Here to talk about all of this is my LA Times colleague Sarah D. Wyer.

She covers the U.S. Department of Justice and National Security with a focus on January 6th.

Sarah, welcome to the Times.

Thanks for having me.

There's just been so much news surrounding January 6th over the past year on all sorts of levels,

but one word seems to come up again and

again to describe it all, unprecedented.

It's an unprecedented security breach.

This is an unprecedented assault on democracy.

...