The long arm of the law keeps reaching out farther and farther….
More names and identification’s are dropped in to the FBI and Justice Dept. computers by the hours….
US investigators have opened 275 criminal cases and charged roughly 98 individuals in connection to last week’s pro-President Donald Trump riot at the US Capitol, federal officials said Friday, emphasizing they are focused on rounding up the most violent offenders.
That number will easily grow to over 300 by the end of the day, Michael Sherwin, acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters during Friday’s news conference.
The update comes as federal investigators are chasing thousands of leads in twin efforts to prosecute people involved in last week’s attack on the US Capitol and to try to prevent feared follow-up attacks in Washington, DC, and around the country.
The challenge, FBI and Department of Justice officials say, is “unprecedented,” particularly given the growing concerns about possible protests around the country this weekend and planning around what will be the most heavily fortified presidential inauguration in modern US history.
“If this investigation was a football game, we’d still be in the first quarter,” Steven D’Antuono of the FBI’s Washington Field Office said Friday, making clear the arrests and charges levied so far are only the beginning.
At the same time, a more complete picture of what occurred inside the Capitol last week is coming into view after a week of arrests and charges….
Wolf Blitzer
There’s very disturbing breaking news here in Washington. @CNN reports U.S. Capitol Police arrested a Virginia man with fake inaugural credentials, a loaded gun and over 500 rounds of ammunition. I’m anchoring special @CNNSitRoom coverage today 3-7PM ET.
That’s one busy circuit Court, unless they are going to be sending it out to local federal courts…
The deeper they dig?
…
The fiery rallies that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were organized and promoted by an array of established conservative insiders and activists, documents and videos show.
The Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots. At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the rallies.
The two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in Washington…
More….
Trump Allies Helped Plan Rally That Ignited Riot
“Members of President Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.”
“An attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be ‘on site’ during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.”
Trump’s Own Supporters Implicate Him
“In the two weeks since a raging mob stormed the Capitol, President Trump has shown no sign that he believes he shares responsibility for the worst incursion on the halls of Congress in more than two centuries. Shielding him further, his loyalists have started shifting blame for the attack to an array of distracting bogeymen: far-left anti-fascists, Black Lives Matter activists, even vague conspiracies of a setup involving Vice President Mike Pence,” the New York Times reports.
“But one group of people has already come forward and directly implicated Mr. Trump in the riot at the Capitol: some of his own supporters who were arrested while taking part in it. In court papers and interviews, at least four pro-Trump rioters have said they joined the march that spiraled into violence in part because the president encouraged them to do so.”
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) to Fox News: “Trump misled followers into believing election was rigged, resulted in attack on Capitol.”
FBI moves on alleged members of extremist groups Oath Keepers, Three Percenters
A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two self-styled militia members from Ohio have been charged with taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building….
More…
Two U.S. Army National Guard members are being removed from the security mission to secure Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. A U.S. Army official and a senior U.S. intelligence official say the two National Guard members have been found to have ties to fringe right group militias.
No plot against Biden was found…..
More…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sharply criticized federal officials on Monday over reports that the Department of Defense, assisted by the FBI, is vetting members of the National Guard assigned to provide security during the inauguration this week….
More…
If people like Abbott are”criticizing “ it?
Then you know it’s the right thing to do!
Two of them got yanked….
That’s a fact
The number of soldiers puled from Capitol detail up to 12…
Had these two (or another two) Guard members been found tied to violent Sunni Jihadism, these protective Republican officeholders would of course have been screaming for instant war on Shi’ite Iran.
Double standard DSD?
Really?