U.S. federal agents have arrested more than 430 people in connection with the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, a senior Justice Department official said Thursday, adding that the number of arrests continues to grow.
The 430 arrests represent more than half of an estimated 800 supporters of former President Donald Trump who breached the Capitol to try to prevent Congress from declaring Joe Biden winner of the November presidential election.
The attack, which left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer, and resulted in more than 100 other officers being injured, triggered one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history.
“The investigations span almost the entire country,” Brad Wiegmann, deputy assistant attorney general for national security, testified before a panel of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.
Those arrested so far include several dozen members of far-right groups, as well as current and former military and law enforcement personnel, but also hundreds of others with no known ties to extremist organizations.FILE – In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, smoke fills the walkway outside the Senate Chamber as violent rioters loyal to President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers inside the Capitol in Washington.While the pace of arrests has slowed considerably in recent weeks, the FBI says it continues to identify and arrest the alleged perpetrators of the attack nearly every day.
This week, the FBI arrested two men — FBI Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division Jill Sanborn speaks during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Senate Committee on Rules and Administration joint hearing, March 3, 2021.Jill Sanborn, the FBI’s chief of counterterrorism, told the committee that the bureau remains concerned about the threat of domestic violent extremism.“We expect racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists, and other DVEs [domestic violent extremists] citing partisan political grievances will very likely pose the greatest domestic terrorism threats in 2021 and likely into 2022,” Sanborn said.In response to the threat, she said, the FBI surged its domestic terrorism personnel by 260% last year when cases of domestic terrorism doubled.That does not mean the threat of international terrorism has diminished, Sanborn emphasized. In fact, for the first time in two decades, she noted “the threats from domestic terrorism, Salafi jihadism and state-sponsored terrorism are all elevated simultaneously.”
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