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PHOENIX (AP) – The pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol last week was aimed at “capturing and murdering elected officials,” federal prosecutors have said in court documents.
The remark came in a petition that prosecutors filed Thursday night in the case against Jacob Chansley, the Arizona man who took part in the insurgency while wearing face paint, not shirt and a fur hat with horns.
Prosecutors say that after Chansley stepped onto the dais where Vice President Mike Pence was presiding moments earlier, Chansley wrote a threatening note to Pence which read: “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming. ”
Pence and other congressional leaders had been kicked out of the chamber by the Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police before rioters broke into the room.
“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions on Capitol Hill, supports the intention of the rioters on Capitol Hill was to capture and assassinate US government officials,” prosecutors wrote in their memo. urging the judge to keep Chansley behind bars.
Gerald Williams, Chansley’s attorney, did not return a phone call or email Friday morning asking for comment. A detention hearing is scheduled in his case for later Friday.
The FBI investigated whether any of the rioters had conspired to kidnap members of Congress and keep them hostage, particularly focusing on the men seen wearing plastic zippered handcuffs and pepper spray.
Prosecutors on Friday raised a similar perspective in the case of a former Air Force officer who they said wore zippered plastic handcuffs because he intended to “take hostages ”. But so far, the Justice Department has not released specific evidence of the plots or explained how the rioters planned to execute them.
Chansley, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman” and has been around Trump rallies for a long time, visited the FBI field office in Phoenix on Saturday.
News photos show him rioting shirtless, face painted and wearing a horned fur hat, carrying an American flag attached to a wooden pole topped with a spear.
QAnon is an apocalyptic, convoluted conspiracy theory widely disseminated on the Internet and promoted by some right-wing extremists.
Chansley told investigators he came to Capitol Hill “at the President’s request that all ‘Patriots’ come to Washington on January 6, 2021.” An indictment was unveiled in Washington on Tuesday with civil unrest, obstruction of due process, disorderly conduct in a small building and a protest at a Capitol building.
More than 80 people face charges stemming from the violence, including more than 40 people in federal court. The federal charges so far have mostly concerned crimes such as illegal entry, but prosecutors said they were weighing more serious charges against at least some of the rioters.
Michael Sherwin, the acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, said this week that he had organized a group of national security and public corruption prosecutors whose sole purpose was to lay charges of sedition for the “worst acts. most heinous that happened in the Capitol ”.
At a hearing in Texas Thursday, a prosecutor urged a judge to keep Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. locked up, saying the man intended to “take hostages.” Brock was arrested in Texas on Sunday after being photographed on Senate floor during the deadly riot wearing a helmet and a heavyweight vest and zippered plastic handcuffs.
“He wants to kidnap, detain, maybe try, maybe execute members of the American government”, the American assistant lawyer Jay Weimer, without providing details.
Brock’s attorney, Brook Antonio II, noted the man had only been charged with misdemeanors. Antonio said there was no direct evidence that Brock smashed any doors or windows to enter the Capitol, or did anything violent once inside.
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Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporter Jake Bleiberg contributed to this report from Fort Worth, Texas.
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