While the US media does not make a distinction between peaceful protesters who took part in the 6 January Trump rally in DC and the group of 200 or so rioters who broke…
Over 170 criminal cases have been opened so far in the wake of the Capitol Hill protests which left five people dead, according to Michael Sherwin, acting US attorney for the District of Columbia. In addition to that, the FBI is investigating the planting of pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, as NBC News reported on 13 January. On 6 January, a group of demonstrators broke into the Capitol building amid the joint congressional session to count electoral votes. The incident occurred hours after a rally held by President Donald Trump outside the White House. The crowd that gathered on 6 January in Washington DC did not seem to be determined to engage in any sort of rioting, according to Mark Finchem, Arizona State Representative, who chaired the Arizona Hearing on Election Fraud and attended Trump’s rally on that day. For his part, Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel observes that those breached into the building “was a tiny number compared to the massive total crowd”. Together with Crowdsource the Truth founder Jason Goodman, Ortel filmed the gathering and the incident from a spot outside of the restricted area. “I am unclear what time the building was breached exactly,” the analyst recalls. “We arrived at the Capitol grounds about 15 to 30 minutes after President Trump finished his speech to find no barriers and no police guarding the back entrance.” Ortel notes that by the time they arrived, hundreds of people, perhaps thousands, already were inside the grounds, but only a few had begun to climb up the scaffolding and grandstands, or reached the Capitol building itself. Thousands more people streamed in continuously from the moment Ortel and Goodman arrived and afterwards. The group that took part in the Capitol breach appear to be comprised of people from all different walks of life.
