PHOENIX (AP) – The pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol was intended last week to “arrest and murder elected officials,” federal prosecutors said in court documents.
The comment came in a motion that prosecutors filed Thursday night in the case against Jacob Chansley, the Arizona man who took part in the uprising wearing face paint, no shirt, and a furry hat with horns.
Prosecutors say after Chansley climbed to the podium where Vice President Mike Pence presided a few minutes earlier, Chansley wrote a threatening note to Pence saying, “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
Pence and other congressional leaders had been escorted out of the room by Secret Service and Capitol police before the rioters burst into the room.
“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions in the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to imprison and murder elected officials in the US government,” prosecutors wrote in their memo in which they sued the judge. urged to keep Chansley behind bars.
Gerald Williams, Chansley’s attorney, called and emailed not looking for comment on Friday morning. A hearing on detention is scheduled in his case for later Friday.
The FBI has investigated whether any of the rioters had plots to kidnap members of Congress and hold them hostage, particularly targeting the men seen wearing plastic zippered handcuffs and pepper spray.
Prosecutors brought forward a similar prospect on Friday in the case of a former Air Force officer who they believe was wearing zippered plastic handcuffs because he intended to “take hostages.” But so far, the Justice Department has not publicly released any specific evidence about the plots or explained how the rioters intended to carry them out.
Chansley, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman” and has long been a fixture at Trump rallies, surrendered to the FBI field office in Phoenix on Saturday.
News photos show him shirtless at the riot, with his face painted and wearing a fur hat with horns, an American flag attached to a wooden pole with a spear on top.
QAnon is an apocalyptic and complicated conspiracy theory largely distributed over the internet and promoted by some right-wing extremists.
Chansley told investigators he was coming to the Capitol “at the request of the president that all ‘patriots’ come to Washington on January 6, 2021.” An indictment fired him Tuesday in Washington with civil disorder, obstruction of official proceedings, disorderly conduct in a confined building and demonstration in a Capitol building.
More than 80 people are charged with the violence, including more than 40 in federal court. The federal charges brought so far are primarily for crimes such as illegal entry, but prosecutors have said they are weighing up more serious charges against at least some of the rioters.
Michael Sherwin, acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said this week that he has organized a group of national security and public corruption prosecutors for the sole purpose of filing charges of sedition for the “most heinous acts committed in the Capitol. have occurred”.
At a hearing in Texas on Thursday, a district attorney urged a judge to ask Colonel Larry Rendall Brock Jr. locked up and said the man wanted to ‘take hostages’. Brock was arrested in Texas on Sunday after being photographed during the deadly riot on the Senate floor wearing a helmet and heavy vest and plastic zippered handcuffs.
“He plans to kidnap, restrain, maybe try, maybe execute,” said Assistant Attorney Jay Weimer, without providing specific details.
Brock’s attorney, Brook Antonio II, noted that the man has only been charged with felonies. Antonio said there was no direct evidence that Brock broke doors or windows to enter the Capitol, or did anything violent once inside.
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Richer reported from Boston. Jake Bleiberg, Associated Press journalist, contributed to this report from Fort Worth, Texas.