The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has found that the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol was not organized by pro-Donald Trump groups as part of a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, four current and former law enforcement officials said, according to Reuters on Friday.
More than 570 alleged participants have been arrested since the demonstration, but the FBI believes they are almost all “one-off cases” and not due to a centrally coordinated “far-right” effort, nor are they the result of an organized push by then-President Donald Trump supporters.
“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” said a former senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. “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 sources said investigators did find cells of protesters linked to groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whose goal was to break into the Capitol, but there is no evidence that either group has additional plans about what to do once they made it inside.
Reuters reported that top lawmakers have been briefs on the FBI’s investigation so far and believe the results are credible, according to a Democrat congressional source.
Earlier this month, the Senate unanimously approved a bill that will award Congressional gold medals to Washington, D.C., Metro and Capitol law enforcement officers who were working during the January 6 Capitol storming.
“Jan. 6 released many horrors, but it also produced many heroes,” Schumer said from the Senate floor. “A day that many of us remember for its violence, anger and destruction was not without its share of bravery, sacrifice and selflessness.”
In July, the National Police Association (NPA) slammed Congress for investigating the Capitol Hill storming while “ignoring” the destructive riots that raged across the United States last year.
“There were at least 574 violent riots in 2020, and yet today’s Congressional hearings are focusing on only one riot, January 6th, 2021, and hearing testimony from only a few of the police officers involved,” association spokeswoman Betsy Brantner Smith told The Washington Times on Tuesday.
“Brave police officers attempted to defend stores, apartment buildings, churches, hotels, several of their own precincts and courthouses and even a Ronald McDonald House from looting, arson and vandalism,” she continued, noting several cases in which officers suffered “horrific” injuries, including one who was paralyzed.
