WASHINGTON (AP) – These suspects did not exactly hide.
“THIS IS ME”, one man posted on Instagram with a hand emoji pointing to himself in a photo of the violent mob descending on the American Capitol. ‘Sooo, we stormed Capitol Hill, lol’, one woman sent a message to someone while she was in the building. “I just wanted to incriminate myself a little bit lol,” another wrote on Facebook about a selfie he took during the January 6 riot.
In dozens of cases, supporters of President Donald Trump showed off their activities on social media on the day of the deadly uprising. Some, apparently realizing that they were having trouble with the law, deleted their accounts only to discover that their friends and family members had already taken screenshots of their selfies, videos, and comments and sent them to the FBI.
Their total lack of concern about being caught and the willingness of their friends to file them in helped authorities prosecute about 150 people on Monday for federal crimes. But even with the help of the rioters, investigators still have to work hard to link the images to the vandalism and suspects to the January 6 acts to prove their case in court. And because so few were arrested at the scene, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were forced to send agents to track down suspects.
“Just because you left the DC region, you can still expect a knock on the door when we find out you were involved in criminal activity within the Capitol,” said Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the DC FBI’s Washington office, said earlier this month. “In short, the FBI is not saving any resources in this investigation.”
In the past few weeks, the FBI has received more than 200,000 photos and video tips related to the riot. Investigators have placed billboards in several states with photos of wanted rioters. Agents, based on tips from co-workers, acquaintances and friends, tracked down the driver’s license photos to match their faces to those captured on camera in the building. In some cases, authorities have obtained records from Facebook or Twitter to link their social media accounts to their email addresses or phone numbers. In others, agents used records of license plate readers to confirm their journey.
More than 800 are believed to have invaded the Capitol, though not all will likely be tracked down and charged with a crime. Federal prosecutors focus on the most critical cases and the worst examples of wrongdoing. And they must weigh manpower, cost and evidence when loading rioters.
A special group of prosecutors is investigating whether they will charge the rioters, who faces up to 20 years in prison. One trio was charged with conspiracy; most were charged with crimes such as unlawful entry and disorderly conduct.
Many rioters posted selfies in the Capitol on their social media accounts, interviewed news outlets describing their experience and admitted when questioned by federal investigators that they were there. One man has a Facebook album titled “Who’s House? OUR HOUSE ”filled with photos of himself and others on Capitol grounds, officials said.
“They would have thought, like so many people working with Trump, that if the president tells me to do this, it’s not breaking the law,” said Michael Gerhardt, an expert on accusation and professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Others made mistakes, such as a Houston police officer who denied entering the Capitol, and then agreed to have agents look at the photos on his phone. Authorities said photos and videos in his folder were removed from photos, including selfies he took in the building. Another man was wearing a GPS monitor in court after a burglary conviction tracked every move in the building.
A retired firefighter from Long Island, New York, sent a video of himself in the Capitol roundabout to his girlfriend’s brother, saying he was “on the verge of spear,” officials said. The brother happened to be a federal agent at the State Department’s diplomatic security service, who passed the video on to the FBI. A lawyer for the man, Thomas Fee, said he “was not part of any attempt to take over the American Capitol” and that “the allegation is that he simply walked through an open door to the Capitol – nothing more. ”
Another man who was in the Capitol was prepared to outwit another rioting man who stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and emailed the video to an FBI agent, and even signed his own name on it. ‘Hello Nice FBI Lady,’ he wrote, ‘here are the links to the videos. It 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 shouted “Trump 2020!” and was kicked off. A police officer at the airport saw the man get off the plane and the man was booked on another flight. Forty-five minutes later, the officer watched 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 lawyers have admitted that the evidence is a problem for them.
“I’m not a magician,” a lawyer told the man pictured holding Pelosi’s mouthpiece. “We have a photo of our client in a federal building or in the Capitol with government property,” he told reporters.
The police at the Capitol only planned for a free speech demonstration and were overwhelmed by the mob that broke through and wandered around the Capitol halls for hours when lawmakers hid. Five people were killed in the disappointment, including a Capitol police officer who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.
Trump was charged after the riot with a charge of “incitement to violence against the United States government”. Opening arguments begin the week of February 8th. He is the first president to be charged twice and the first to face a trial after leaving office.
Unlike criminal cases, accusations do not have specific rules of evidence, and therefore anything said and done on the day can be used. And several of the accused said this in interviews with reporters or federal agents that they were merely listening to the president as they marched to the Capitol.
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Richer reported from Boston.