Hunt for attackers still on 6 months after Jan. 6

The first waves of arrests in the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol focused on the easy targets. Dozens in the pro-Trump mob openly bragged about their actions on Jan. 6 on social media and were captured in footage broadcast live by national news outlets.

But six months after the insurrection, the Justice Department is still hunting for scores of rioters, even as the first of more than 500 people already arrested have pleaded guilty. The struggle reflects the massive scale of the investigation and the grueling work still ahead for authorities in the face of the increasing effort by some Republican lawmakers to downplay what happened that day.

Among those who still haven’t been caught are the person who planted two pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees the night before the melee, as well as many people accused of attacks on law-enforcement officers, or violence and threats against journalists.

The FBI website seeking information about those involved in the Capitol violence includes more than 900 pictures of roughly 300 people labeled “unidentified.”

Part of the problem is that authorities made very few arrests on Jan. 6. They were focused instead on clearing the building of members of the massive mob that attacked police, damaged historic property and combed the halls for lawmakers they threatened to kill. Federal investigators are forced to go back and hunt down participants.

The FBI has since received many tips and pieces of digital media from the public. But a tip is only the first step of a painstaking process, involving items like search warrants and interviews, to confirm people’s identities and their presence at the insurrection, in order to bring a case in court. And authorities have no record of many of the attackers because this was their first run-in with the law.