More arrests made amid new calls for investigation of Capitol mob attack

One week after an angry mob stormed the Capitol, Congress struggled Wednesday to make sense of the most serious incursion on its home in more than two centuries as lawmakers called for new investigations and federal authorities fanned out across the country, taking into custody several more suspects, including two police officers from Virginia and a firefighter from Florida.

The flurry of arrests and appeals for inquiry came as the House brought a historic second impeachment charge against President Donald Trump and federal law enforcement officials continued to examine whether the assault on the Capitol included coordinated efforts by small groups of extremists and was not merely a mass protest that spiraled out of control.

All of this took place as official Washington remained in a defensive crouch, with much of the city surrounded by protective fencing and armed troops camped inside the Capitol complex.

Led by Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J. and a former Navy pilot, more than 30 lawmakers called Wednesday for an investigation into visitors’ access to the Capitol on the day before the riot. In a letter to the acting House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the U.S. Capitol Police, the lawmakers, many of whom served in the military and said they were trained to “recognize suspicious activity,” demanded answers about what they described as an “extremely high number of outside groups” let into the Capitol on Jan. 5 at a time when most tours were restricted because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Separately, the inspector general’s office of the Capitol Police said it was opening a potentially wideranging inquiry into security breaches connected to the siege. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency, signaled it would look into what role, if any, members of Congress may have played in inciting the mob of Trump supporters who breached metal barricades and shattered windows Jan. 6, seeking to overturn the results of the election.

Banned last week from Twitter, Trump issued a brief statement Wednesday, calling on Americans “to ease tensions and calm tempers.”

But high-ranking officials, including some at the Pentagon, have maintained they are profoundly worried about Inauguration Day, when President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to be sworn in.