WASHINGTON (AP) – Law enforcers were highly prepared to see the US Capitol on Thursday after intelligence uncovered a ‘possible conspiracy’ by a militia group to storm the iconic building again, two months after a crowd of Donald Trump supporters passed by windows and doors burst after trying to stop Congress from ratifying now-president Joe Biden’s victory.
The threat is related to a far-right conspiracy theory, promoted mainly by QAnon supporters, that former President Trump will return to power on March 4 and that thousands will come to Washington, DC to remove Democrats from office. . March 4 was the original inauguration day until 1933 when it was moved to January 20th.
Online talks identified by authorities included talks among members of the Three Percenters, a military group against the government, about possible conspiracies against the Capitol on Thursday, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to speak in public. and spoke on condition of anonymity. Members of the three percent were among the extremists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.
The threat came when police in Capitol and other law enforcement agencies took off from Congress this week in controversial hearings on the poor handling of the January 6 riot. The police were ill-prepared for the mass Trump supporters in tactical equipment, some armed, and it took hours before reinforcements from the National Guard arrived. At the moment, rioters broke into the building and smashed them and wandered around the halls for hours, temporarily halting Congress’ certification effort and hiding lawmakers.
Lawmakers, congressional staff and law enforcement officials are still on track after the January 6 attack, even though the security stance around the Capitol is at an unprecedented level.
The U.S. House finalized its work for the week on Wednesday night, but the U.S. Senate planned another busy day for Thursday with votes until the evening. Police have strengthened their presence in and around the Capitol. About 5,200 members of the National Guard remain in DC, the rest of the approximately 26,000 brought in for the inauguration of President Biden in January, which went smoothly.
There is also a very large fence around the American Capitol perimeter that surrounds all the access roads, also in the streets around the building, which was put in place after January 6th. And Trump is in Florida.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the former chairman of the Home Security Committee and among those briefed on the new threat, said lawmakers were tense.
“I think we’ll see violence here,” he said in an interview.
But unlike on January 6, the Capitol is now reinforced against intrusions. ‘We have the razor wire, we have the national guard. We did not have it on January 6th. That is why I feel very confident in the security. ‘
McCaul warned that there could be another diversionary tactic – just as the pipe bombs discovered at the political campaign offices on January 6 were an attempt to lure law enforcement before the Capitol uprising.
At first, it seemed like the online chat did not rise to the level of serious concern; an opinion sent to members of Congress earlier this week by Acting Arms Sergeant Timothy Blodgett said Capitol police “have no indication that groups will travel to Washington DC to protest or commit violence.”
But that advice was updated in a note to lawmakers Wednesday morning. Blodgett wrote that the Capitol police “have received new information regarding intelligence and intelligence indicating additional interest in the Capitol for the dates of March 4-6 by a civilian force.”
Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said during the House testimony on Wednesday that her investigators had gathered “some intelligence” but refused to give any details in public, saying it was “sensitive to law enforcement” and that she will provide a private briefing for the subcommittee. members.
Meanwhile, federal agents found no significant increase in the number of hotel rooms rented in Washington, as well as flights to the area, car rental bookings and any buses hired to bring groups to the capital, a person familiar with the matter said. . The Associated Press. The person could not discuss details about the security planning and talked about the condition of anonymity.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also sent a joint information bulletin to local law enforcers on Tuesday, warning that a group of civilian extremists had discussed taking control of the Capitol on March 4 and encouraging thousands of people to go to DC to come to try to remove Democrats from power.
But there has been a marked decline in online activity on some social media platforms around the March 4 attempts, and there have been significantly fewer chats online than during the run-up to January 6, a day that Trump repeatedly called for a rally and thousands encouraged to come to the country’s capital.
Several QAnon groups still working on the social media messaging platform have warned Telegram followers to stay away from any events on March 4, claiming it is a setup for Trump supporters.
Also thousands of accounts which promoted the January 6 rally that led to a violent storm of the American Capitol, has since been suspended by major tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter, making it much harder for QAnon and far-right groups to repeat the masses organize meeting. .
Twitter banned more than 70,000 accounts after the riots, while Facebook and Instagram removed posts calling “stop the steal,” a pro-Trump rally to mobilize its supporters in January. And the conservative social media platform Parler, which many of Trump’s supporters have joined in promoting false conspiracy theories in the election fraud and encouraging friends to “storm” the Capitol on January 6, has been uploaded to the Internet after the siege.
So far, about 300 people have been charged with federal crimes for their role in the riot. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, were killed.
Since his defeat, Trump has promoted lies that the election was stolen of him by mass voter fraud, though such claims were rejected by judges, Republican government officials, and Trump’s own administration. He was indicted by the House after the January 6 riot for inciting rebellion but was acquitted by the Senate.
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Associated Press authors Nomaan Merchant in Houston; Colleen Long, Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington; and Amanda Seitz in Chicago contributed to this report.