FBI investigators say 95 percent of the more than 570 arrested participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol Building riots are “one-off cases,” according to an August 20 exclusive by Reuters.
Relying on comments from four anonymous sources described as “current and former law enforcement officials,” Reuters quoted the former agent as saying, “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”
The source was also paraphrased as saying that although “cells” of groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers intended to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, “They found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside.”
Paraphrasing a second source, Reuters said there has, “Been little, if any, recent discussion by senior Justice Department officials of filing charges such as ‘seditious conspiracy’ to accuse defendants of trying to overthrow the government,” and no plans for racketeering charges.
Sources also said no charges were pending against any individual or group for playing “a central role in organizing or leading the riot.”
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The officials also noted investigators “so far found no evidence” that former President Donald Trump “or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence.”
‘Domestic terrorism’
In March, FBI Director Christopher Wray characterized the riots as “behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism,” denouncing participants as “on the same level with ISIS and homegrown violent extremists,” during comments to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Wray’s opening statement also contained verbiage such as, “Jan. 6 was not an isolated event…The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across this country for a long time now and it is not going away any time soon.”
“When domestic violence extremists use explosive devices, when they attack government facilities and businesses, when they assault law enforcement officers, when they use violence to interfere with the lawful operation of our government, they should expect the FBI to come knocking on their door, no matter where they try to run.”
In July, both the Big Tech cartel and online payment processing industry leader PayPal made separate announcements to expand censorship and cancel culture, proclaiming an effort to crackdown on “extremist and hate movements” from “white supremacists and anti-government organizations,” citing Jan. 6 as a foundational factor in the decision.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), a conglomerate of more than a dozen of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, such as Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon, and WhatsApp, announced intentions to expand a hashed database of content from Islamist extremist groups such as the Taliban and al Qaeda, to “add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism.”
GIFCT’s Executive Director, Nicholas Rasmussen, was quoted by Reuters as saying, “Anyone looking at the terrorism or extremism landscape has to appreciate that there are other parts…that are demanding attention right now.” Rasmussen cited “far-right or racially motivated violent extremism,” while Reuters itself linked the comments to the Capitol events.
The same day, PayPal announced it would partner with the left-wing Anti Defamation League (ADL) to, “Investigate how extremist and hate movements in the United States take advantage of financial platforms to fund their criminal activities.”
PayPal and the ADL said data gathered would be shared with, “Other firms in the financial industry, law enforcement and policymakers.”
In response to the announcement, journalist Glenn Greenwald on Twitter called the ADL a “highly politicized group” that is “completely liberal and aligned with the DNC, just a tad more pro-Israel in their focus but otherwise no differences.”
“This is yet another union between establishment liberalism and Big Tech to control and censor the internet,” said Greenwald.
