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WASHINGTON (AP) – These suspects weren’t exactly hidden.
“THIS IS ME,” a man posted on Instagram with a hand emoji pointed at himself in a photo of the violent crowd descending on the US Capitol. “Sooo, we stormed Capitol Hill lol,” a woman sent to someone inside the building. “I just wanted to self-incriminate a little lol,” another wrote on Facebook of a selfie he took inside during the January 6 riot.
In dozens of cases, supporters of President Donald Trump have outright flaunted their social media activity on the day of the deadly insurgency. Some, apparently realizing they were in trouble with the law, deleted their accounts only to find that their friends and family had already taken screenshots of their selfies, videos and comments and sent them over. to the FBI.
Their complete lack of concern for getting caught and their friends’ willingness to report them helped authorities charge around 150 people on Monday with federal crimes. But even with the help of the rioters themselves, investigators still have to work rigorously to link the footage to the vandalism and the suspects to the acts of January 6 in order to prove their case in court. And with so few people arrested at the scene, the FBI and the US Marshals Service were forced to send agents to track down the suspects.
“Just because you left the DC area, you can still expect a knock on the door if we find out you were part of criminal activity inside the Capitol,” Steven D’Antuono, the director deputy in charge of the FBI in Washington. office, said earlier this month. “Bottom line, the FBI is sparing no resources in this investigation.”
In recent weeks, the FBI has received more than 200,000 photos and video tips related to the riot. Investigators have set up notice boards in several states with photos of wanted rioters. Following the advice of colleagues, acquaintances and friends, officers traced the driver’s license photos to match their faces to those captured by the camera in the building. In some cases, authorities have obtained records from Facebook or Twitter to connect their social media accounts to their email addresses or phone numbers. In others, officers used license plate readers’ records to confirm their trips.
More than 800 people are believed to have entered the Capitol, although it is likely that not everyone will be found and charged with a crime. Federal prosecutors focus on the most critical cases and the most egregious examples of wrongdoing. And they have to weigh the numbers, the costs and the evidence when they charge the rioters.
Special panel of prosecutors examines whether to lay sedition charges against rioters, which carry up to 20 years in prison. A trio were charged with conspiracy; most have been charged with crimes such as illegal entry and disorderly conduct.
Many rioters posted selfies inside the Capitol on their social media accounts, gave interviews to news outlets describing their experience, and readily admitted when questioned by federal investigators that they were the. A man created a Facebook album called “Who’s House?” OUR HOME “filled with photos of himself and others on the Capitol grounds, officials said.
“They might have thought, like many people who work with Trump, that if the president told me to do it, it is not a violation of the law,” said Michael Gerhardt, impeachment expert and professor at the University. of North Carolina School of Law.
Others made mistakes, such as a Houston policeman who denied entering the Capitol, then agreed to let officers look at the photos on his phone. In his deleted photos folder were pictures and videos, including selfies he took inside the building, authorities said. Another man was wearing a court-ordered GPS monitor after a burglary conviction that tracked his every move inside the building.
A retired firefighter from Long Island, New York, sent a video of himself in the Capitol rotunda to his girlfriend’s brother, saying he was ‘at the tip of the spear’, officials said . The brother was a federal agent in the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, who turned over the video to the FBI. A lawyer for the man, Thomas Fee, said he “was not part of any attempt to take over the US Capitol” and that “the allegation is that he simply walked through an open door in the US Capitol – nothing more”.
Another man who was inside the Capitol was ready to denounce another rioter who stole the lectern from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and emailed the video to an FBI agent, even signing his own name on it. “Hello Nice FBI Lady,” he wrote, “Here are the links to the videos. Looks like Podium Guy is in one of them minus the podium. Let me know if you need anything else. “
In another case, a man was on a flight leaving DC two days after the riot when he kept yelling “Trump 2020!” and was launched. An airport police officer saw the man get off the plane and the man was booked on another flight. Forty-five minutes later, the officer was watching a video on Instagram and recognized the man in a group of rioters. The man, who was wearing the same shirt as the day he stormed the Capitol, was arrested at the airport, authorities said.
Even the defense attorneys admitted they had a problem with the evidence.
“I am not a magician,” said the lawyer for the man seen in a photo wearing Pelosi’s lectern. “We have a photograph of our client in what appears to be inside a federal building or inside the Capitol with government property.”
Capitol Police only planned one free speech protest and were overwhelmed by crowds who entered and walked the halls of the Capitol for hours as lawmakers were sent underground. Five people died in the melee, including a Capitol Hill policeman who was hit on the head with a fire extinguisher.
Trump was impeached after the riot for “inciting violence against the United States government.” The opening arguments will begin the week of February 8. He is the first president to be indicted twice and the first to stand trial after leaving office.
Unlike criminal cases, impeachment trials do not have specific rules of evidence, so anything said and done on that day can be used. And several of those charged said in interviews with reporters or federal agents that they were just listening to the president when they walked to the Capitol.
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Richer reported from Boston.
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