REVOLTING
Meet the thugs behind the attack on the Capitol
DC police released pictures of dozens of people who participated in the President Trump-incited mob that stormed the Capitol Wednesday. As of yesterday, 68 people had been arrested, as the building was cleaned up and Trump lay low.
A massive manhunt was underway on Thursday for the thugs who launched a bloody assault on the Capitol — as President Trump faced growing calls for his removal from office before finally addressing the nation.
The fallout was felt across Washington, DC, and the nation, one day after the hordes laid waste to the seat of American democracy, delaying — but not preventing — the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
National and local law-enforcement ramped up an all-out blitz to track down and bring the insurrectionists to justice, adding to the dozens of criminal cases already initiated, including at the federal level.
They circulated a rogues’ gallery showing dozens of suspects wanted in the Capitol ransacking, as they scoured hotels and airports in an attempt to snare any stragglers before fleeing the Beltway.
“We do not tolerate violent agitators and extremists who use the guise of First Amendment-protected activity to in cite violence and wreak havoc ,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“Make no mistake: With our partners, we will hold accountable those who participated in yesterday’s siege of the Capitol.”
In a day of fast-moving developments:
■ Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle beseeched Vice President Mike Pence — who, too, was forced to flee the chambers of Congress on Wednesday as rioters stalked the halls — to depose Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment, with some threatening another impeachment bid as the alternative.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — whose office was among those trashed in the invasion — additionally told Pence that if he didn’t take steps to remove Trump from office, she and others in Congress may.
“By inciting sedition like he [Trump] did yesterday, he must be removed from office,” she said. “If the vice president and Cabinet do not act, the Congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment.”
Several fellow lawmakers signed on to the call, including Senate Democratic leader Chuck
Schumer, of New York, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican.
■ Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for Washington, DC, would not rule out bringing charges against Trump should a determination be made that his Wednesday calls for supporters to “fight like hell” had incited the Capitol invasion.
“We’re trying to deal with the closest alligators to the boat right now, and those are the people that obviously breached the Capitol and created violence and mayhem there,” he said.
“But, yes, we are looking at all actors here. Not only the people who went into the building.
“Anyone that had a role and the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”
Sherwin announced that 55 people already had been or were expected to be charged in superior or federal courts on charges including unlawful entry, assault, weapons possession and theft of property.
The theft charges could have national-security implications as investigators determine whether any electronics or documents looted from lawmakers’ offices contained classified material, Sherwin said.
■ Trump addressed the nation in a video he released on Twitter around 7 p.m. that served to both decry the “violence” at the Capitol and accept the results of the 2020 election.
Describing it as a “heinous attack on the US Capitol,” Trump said, “like all Americans I am outraged by the violence, law
lessness and mayhem.”
He vowed that the perpetrators would be caught and “brought to justice.”
Trump went on to say that his focus is now on “a seamless transition of power.”
“This moment calls for healing and reconciliation . . . 2020 has been a challenging time for our people,” he said, citing the “menacing pandemic” that claimed “countless lives.”
■ Steven Sund, the chief of the federally run Capitol Police, announced his resignation on Thursday, hours after Pelosi called on him to surrender his post.
“There was a failure of leadership at the top of the Capitol Police,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.) prior to Sund stepping down.
Video shows waves of protesters easily overrunning the cops, first to gain entry to the Capitol, then as they pressed closer and closer to the chambers of Congress.
The Capitol Police rejected offers of reinforcements on two occasions — from the Pentagon three days before the riot and from the Department of Justice as it was unfolding — The Associated Press reported on Thursday, citing senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.
House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving also resigned on Thursday.
■ Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Thursday became the first member of Trump’s Cabinet to announce her resignation as a result of the riots.
“It has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside,” said Chao, the wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky.
She will step aside effective Monday, joining others to step down including Stephanie Grisham, who was the chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump, and Mick Mulvaney, the former acting chief of staff to the president, since shifted to envoy to Northern Ireland.
■ Twitter deleted three posts from Trump’s account and slapped him with a 12-hour ban late Wednesday, but the president did not fire off any new tweets until his evening video, even once the blackout expired.
Facebook, meanwhile, blocked Trump’s accounts “at least” through the remainder of his presidency, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg writing, “[Trump’s] decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world.”
■ Biden — whose election win was certified by Congress in the wee hours of Thursday after the Capitol Hill riot was quelled — called Wednesday “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history.”
“What we witnessed yesterday was not dissent. It was not disorder. It was not protest,” he said in Wilmington, Del. “They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists.”
Biden said that the Capitol Hill break-in was the bloody culmination of Trump’s rhetoric.
“We wish we could say we couldn’t see it coming. That isn’t true,” he said. “We could see it coming. The past four years we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law, clear in everything he has done.”
One theme common among the remarks from law-enforcement, prosecutors and politicians was that the process of unraveling what went wrong and how to set it right would be carried out carefully, if not necessarily quickly.
“We’re not going to keep anything out of our arsenal,” said Sherwin, the US attorney, speaking about the option of casting a wide net with potential criminal charges.
Those filed so far were “a good start,” he said. “But in no regard is that the end. This is just the beginning.”