It's Happening! 'Proud Boys' And 'Oath Keepers' Ge
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Sunday January 31, 2021 · 2:00 PM CST
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/31/20...CONSPIRACY
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A herd of wild jackasses stampeding through out nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021
The biggest case since 9/11
The Washington Post
FBI agents around the country are working to unravel the various motives, relationships, goals and actions of the hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Some inside the bureau have described the Capitol riot investigation as their biggest case since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a top priority of the agents’ work is to determine the extent to which that violence and chaos was preplanned and coordinated.
Investigators caution there is an important legal distinction between gathering like-minded people for a political rally — which is protected by the First Amendment — and organizing an armed assault on the seat of American government. The task now is to distinguish which people belong in each category, and who played key roles in committing or coordinating the violence.
“Historically, within the right-wing extremist movements, leadership has produced rhetoric to spin up their members, increase radicalization and recruitment, and then stand back and let small cells or individual lone offenders follow through on that rhetoric with violent action,” said Thomas O’Connor, a former FBI agent who spent decades investigating domestic terrorists.
“Domestic terrorism actually developed the leaderless resistance concept, taking the potential blame away from the leadership and putting it down into small groups or individuals, and I think that is what you’re starting to see here.”
It’s not easy being an FBI Agent lately, sorting through mountains of evidence and sifting through tens of thousands of tips; but our intrepid federal officers remain undaunted in bringing those responsible for attacking our democracy to justice.
Friday two members of the Proud Boys were charged with conspiracy among a slew of other charges...
The New York Times
In an indictment filed in federal court in Washington, prosecutors charged the two Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola, of Rochester, N.Y., and William Pepe, of Beacon, N.Y., with 11 counts, including conspiracy, assaulting an officer and civil disorder. Both Mr. Pezzola, a former boxer and Marine, and Mr. Pepe, an employee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, were already facing lesser charges connected to the Capitol attack, which followed a Jan. 6 rally in support of President Donald J. Trump.
(snip)
The new Proud Boys indictment offers no evidence that members of the group worked in advance to plot the Capitol assault and describes only vague links between its two defendants, Mr. Pezzola and Mr. Pepe. Still, the indictment notes that the men worked with other individuals — both “known and unknown” — leaving open the possibility that further charges could be filed.
(snip)
Court papers released on Friday morning said that he was in the first wave of rioters to enter the building, shattering a window with a plastic police shield. After climbing through the window, prosecutors said, Mr. Pezzola joined a mob that confronted a Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, in a stairwell near the Senate floor. According to court papers, someone in the mob called out, “Where they meeting at? Where they counting the votes?”
Reuters
U.S. law enforcement agents found bomb-making instructions inside the home of a member of the Proud Boys right-wing extremist group who was charged with participating in the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, prosecutors said on Friday.
Dominic Pezzola, 43, had “weapons- and bomb-making manuals” on a thumb drive device found within his home near Rochester, New York, prosecutors said in a court filing arguing that he should be jailed pending trial.
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Pezzola, known as “Spaz” to associates, poses a “serious danger to the community and a serious risk of flight,” the prosecution brief stated. Pezzola was arrested in New York.
(snip)
Once inside the Capitol, Pezzola chased a police officer up the stairs near the entrance to the Senate chamber, and smoked a cigar while bragging on video about the attack, prosecutors said.
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