By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday ordered federal prosecutors to turn over examples of cases in recent years in which defendants were charged with committing crimes inside a federal building while wearing a face mask, according to an email seen by Reuters.
The unusual request did not explain why the information was needed.
“We have received an urgent request for examples of prosecutions in the last 4 fiscal years of individuals charged with any statute for any crime committed at a federal building and where they were wearing face masks,” wrote Norman Wong, the principal deputy director for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, in an email to U.S. attorneys offices.
“The face mask need not be an element of the crime,” he added.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many state and local governments mandated the use of face-masks from 2020 in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. Many of President Donald Trump’s supporters resisted the orders.
Last year, during the height of protests on college campuses over the war in Gaza, some lawmakers accused pro-Palestinian protesters of using masks to hide their identity and engage in alleged violence. In response, some local governments threatened to dust off obscure state statutes criminalizing mask-wearing or passed bills banning masks at protests.
Activists sometimes wore masks, too, during racial justice protests in Portland, Oregon, in 2020.
In some states, it is a crime to wear a mask while committing a crime, according to an analysis of anti-mask statutes by the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law.
On January 6, 2021, thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters, some of whom were wearing face coverings, stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.
Biden’s Justice Department prosecuted roughly 1,600 people in the attack. Trump granted clemency to all of them on his first day in office.
Many of Trump’s supporters have called the prosecutions overzealous and unfair and some have drawn comparisons with the protests in Portland.
The Justice Department did file criminal charges against some protesters in Portland, but many cases were later dismissed.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has also announced she was creating a new “weaponization working group” tasked with reviewing alleged “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” related to the January 6 riot.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; editing by Andy Sullivan and Rosalba O’Brien)
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