FBI files over 160 cases against individuals who attacked US Capitol on January 6

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday (local time) said that it has opened over 160 investigations against the rioters, who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, which is just the tip of the iceberg, officials asserted, PTI reports.

To arrest and charge multiple individuals, who took part in the siege of the Capitol in Washington DC, the agency has worked with the US Attorney’s Office and law enforcement partners in the US capital, said FBI’s Washington Field Office Assistant Director In-Charge Steven M D’Antuono in a news conference.

D’Antuono said that the FBI in the last six days has “opened over 160 case files, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” He added that the agency has received more than 100,000 pieces of digital media.

The FBI will be knocking on the doors of the individuals who took part in the US Capitol siege, D’Antuono said, further appealing to the people, who were involved in the January 6 attack, to come forward. 

The FBI developed some intelligence, in the weeks leading up to January 6, that some people are planning to the DC area with the intentions to cause violence, D’Antuono said.  He added that on this information, immediate action was taken as Enrique Tario by the Metropolitan Police Department was arrested the night before the siege of Capitol. 

Other individuals were identified in other parts of the country and their travel subsequently disrupted, the FBI official said.

The scope and scale of the investigation in these cases are really unprecedented, not only in the history of the FBI but also probably in the history of the US Department of Justice where the grounds outside and inside the US Capitol are essentially crime scenes, Michael Sherwin, Acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, said. 

“And a scale in which we have literally thousands of potential witnesses and a scenario in which we are going to have, I believe, hundreds of criminal cases both filed with our local courts, our superior courts, and through the federal court system,” Sherwin said, noting this is going to be a long-term investigation, PTI reports.

The Attorney said that the investigations, now 170 open, can grow to the hundreds in the coming weeks. 

The federal prosecutors are looking at everything, from simple trespass to theft of mail, digital devices inside the Capitol to assault on local and federal officers, both outside and inside the Capitol also theft of potential national security information or national defence information, felony murder, and even civil rights excessive force investigations, Sherwin said. 

Sherwin said that two pipe bombs were found outside the RNC and the DNC offices near the Capitol grounds.

“They were real devices. They had explosive ignitors. They had timers. We don’t know exactly why they did not go off. That’s being investigated. They were destroyed, disabled by Capitol Police with the assistance of the ATF, and that is all obviously being vetted and investigated,” he said.

The FBI has announced a reward of USD 5,000 for any information leading to identification of the individual or individuals that left the pipe bombs.