FBI follows “large amount of worrying online thread” ahead of inauguration, director says

FBI Director Chris Wray said on Thursday the agency was following “a large number of worrying online discussions.” This includes calls for armed protests before the president-elect Joe Biden inauguration on January 20.

He said possible rallies and protests in state capitals across the country could attract armed individuals to near government officials and buildings.

“We are looking at individuals who might have an eye for a repeat of the same type of violence that we saw last week,” Wray said, in his first public remarks since pro-Trump. rioters stormed the US Capitol.

The FBI has now identified more than 200 suspects since the Jan.6 attack, according to Wray. He warned, “If you’re there, an FBI agent is coming to find you.”

Details of the suspects are increasingly being revealed.

Some of them have been identified as current or former police or military.

One is a retired Air Force officer, who was arrested in Texas last weekend after he was allegedly seen in a viral photo holding plastic zippered handcuffs in the bedroom of the Senate. A prosecutor said on Thursday he wore them because he intended to “take hostages”.

“He wants to take hostages. He intends to kidnap, detain, maybe try, maybe execute members of the United States government,” Assistant United States Attorney Jay Weimer said of retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. .

A law enforcement official told CBS News that a police officer in Washington DC saw rioters use military-style hand signals to communicate inside the Capitol building during the assault. Identifying individuals using small unit military tactics is among the “highest priorities” of a Sedition Task Force led by the DCUS prosecutor’s office, Catherine Herridge of CBS News reported.

Federal authorities have charged more than 40 people in connection with the riot.

Contribute: The Associated Press