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Researchers: More Than a Dozen Extremist Groups Took Part in Capitol Riots
Voice of America ^ | JANUARY 16, 2021 | Unknown

Posted on 01/19/2021 7:25:24 AM PST by pilgrim

Researchers: More Than a Dozen Extremist Groups Took Part in Capitol Riots JANUARY 16, 2021 Capitol police officers in riot gear push back demonstrators who try to break a door of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6,… Capitol police officers in riot gear push back demonstrators who try to break a door of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6,… WASHINGTON - In the days since the violent Jan. 6 rampage at the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters, a fuller picture has emerged about the rioters, with researchers identifying members of more than a dozen extremist groups that took part in the riots.

The storming of the Capitol drew extremists that included adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the far-right group the Proud Boys, militiamen, white supremacists, anti-maskers and diehard Trump supporters, all gathered to stop Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

“There have been any number of groups that the Southern Poverty Law Center normally tracks and monitors as a part of our work addressing hate and extremism,” said Lecia Brooks, chief of staff for the SPLC.

Brooks shared with VOA the names of more than a dozen extremist groups that she said took part in the riots. Other extremist researchers interviewed by VOA confirmed the list. While designated as hate groups by the SPLC, none of the organizations is considered a domestic terrorist entity, and law enforcement officials have not accused any of them of conspiring to mount an attack on the Capitol.

Clues into the rioters' affiliation came from their clothes, signs, flags, banners and other markers, experts say. While some groups sought to disguise their ties, others flaunted their ideological affiliation. A group of Proud Boys in orange hats identified themselves on camera as members of a state chapter. The Three Percenters carried a U.S. Revolution-era American flag.

“They were operating in plain sight,” said Brian Levin, executive director of the center for the study of hate and extremism at California State University.

While the presence of the militias and the Proud Boys has attracted the most attention, members of lesser-known groups also joined the rioters.

One is the Nationalist Socialist Club, or NSC-131, a recently founded hate group known for disrupting Black Lives Matter protests. Another is No White Guilt, a white nationalist group whose founder has blamed “anti-whiteism” for the spread of the coronavirus in the United States.

Levin said that a combination of national groups, smaller state chapters and autonomous regional entities “participated in one way or another in the gathering.”

Just how many extremist group members took part in the rioting is unclear. While QAnon boasts tens of thousands of adherents, several of the groups identified by the SPLC have far fewer members. The precise number taking part in the riots may never be known.

While prosecutors have so far identified about 300 suspects accused of involvement in the riots, with one or two exceptions, they’ve not tied them to any known extremist groups. Two days after the riots, the FBI arrested Nick Ochs, the founder of the Proud Boys Hawaii, who was among the rioters.

Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said law enforcement officials are aware of the ties between the rioters and extremist groups and are seeking to determine the extent to which the attack was a coordinated effort among multiple groups.

“If you look at social media you could see a lot of affiliation with some of the protest activity, some of the rioting activity, and it runs the whole gamut of different groups, from soup to nuts, A to Z,” Sherwin told reporters Friday. “But right now … we're not going to label anything because everything's on the table in terms of extremist groups.”

Arie Perliger, an extremism researcher and professor at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, said that the extremist groups that took part in the Capitol riots also attended the sometimes-violent protest against state-imposed lockdowns earlier this year.

“I'm talking about the Boogaloo, I'm talking about the Proud Boys, I'm talking Rise Above Nation,” Perliger said. “I think what really brings all these groups together is their perception that Trump was a very effective vehicle to try to disrupt, to dismantle, to undermine the capabilities of the federal government.”

Among those who stormed the Capitol were participants of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a counterprotester.

One was Tim Gionet, a far-right activist who goes by the online pseudonym “Baked Alaska.” Gionet livestreamed a video of himself on DLive from inside the capitol.

users on Tim Gionet's, aka Baked Alaska, live stream on DLive are calling to give lawmakers the "rope" and to "hang all the congressmen" on DLive while he's streaming inside the Capitol building. pic.twitter.com/fq9t7KAlfA

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) January 6, 2021 He was arrested Friday by the FBI in Houston, Texas, and charged with participating in the Capitol riot.

Another is Nick Fuentes, an organizer of the Charlottesville rally who attended Trump’s speech before the riots but did not enter the building, according to Brooks.

Here is a look at some of the groups involved in the Capitol riot.

Proud Boys

The Proud Boys describe themselves as a “Western male chauvinist” club.

The group came to national attention after Trump, asked during a presidential debate in late October to denounce them, declared, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

The Proud Boys’ leader, Enrique Tarrio, is a staunch Trump supporter and led the Latinos for Trump group during the campaign.

Brooks said the Proud Boys were among the organizers of the Capitol rioting. In the days leading up to the riots, Brooks said, the Proud Boys used social media platforms popular with extremists to telegraph that “this was something that was going to happen, that other extremist groups should be involved in, so they kind of they kept this going.”

In late December, Tarrio wrote on Parler that the Proud Boys “will turn out in record numbers” on Jan. 6 without their traditional black and yellow uniform.

Tarrio was arrested days before the riots and barred from returning to Washington. Two days after the riots, the FBI arrested Nick Ochs, the founder of Proud Boys Hawaii.

Oath Keepers and Three Percenters

The Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters are part of a growing anti-government “Patriot” movement known for recruiting members of law enforcement and the military.

The Oath Keepers was founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a former paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate. The oath in the name is a reference to the vow military personnel make to defend the Constitution. The group requires its members to pledge, among other things, not to "disarm the American people," according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The Three Percenters, established in 2018, view themselves as the ideological descendants of the purported 3% of Americans that took part in the Revolutionary War.

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said dozens of Oath Keepers took part in the riots, many carrying the group’s flag. Rhodes was seen in photographs standing outside the Capitol building.

The Oath Keepers took to Telegram and other social media and messaging platforms to urge their followers to show up for the protest, according to Beirich. In an interview after the Nov. 3 election with Alex Jones, a far-right radio show host and conspiracy theorist, Rhodes said “we have men stationed outside D.C. as a nuclear option. In case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we’ll step in and stop it.”

QAnon

QAnon is not an organized group but rather a growing conspiracy theory movement that believes Trump is secretly battling a “deep state” cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles that control the world.

Trump has repeatedly retweeted messages from accounts that promote QAnon, and more than a dozen Republican candidates running for Congress in the November election have embraced some of its tenets.

Beirich said a number of people marching on the Capitol were carrying QAnon signs.

“QAnon were everywhere,” she said. “So it sure seems like a large chunk of the people who stormed the Capitol were members of QAnon.”

The FBI has identified QAnon as a potential domestic terror threat.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: antifa; blacklivesmatter; blm; capitolriot; extremists; hategroupsplc; nowhiteguilt; nsc131; oathkeepers; proudboys; qanon; splc; threepercenters
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To: alexander_busek

>>>By the same token, there can’t have been any “extremist groups” at the Capitol protest.<<<

True! :^)


21 posted on 01/19/2021 8:05:44 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim

I stopped reading as soon as I saw it was SPLC garbage. The SPLC itself is a hate group and a money-making scam by Morris Dees and his pals.


22 posted on 01/19/2021 8:15:57 AM PST by euram
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To: pilgrim

The left-wing author:
2020 USA Votes Researchers: More Than a Dozen Extremist Groups Took Part in Capitol Riots
By Masood Farivar January 16, 2021 08:47 PM
The Voice of America still as left-wing as ever.


23 posted on 01/19/2021 8:17:53 AM PST by Bookshelf
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To: euram

Yep, understand.

Money transferred to ??


24 posted on 01/19/2021 8:29:16 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: Bookshelf

VOA, at one time was a supporter of America.

Never listen any more! Just saw that they admitted to various groups there.


25 posted on 01/19/2021 8:30:33 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim

Our FBI is a domestic terrorist organization.

Our CIA is an international rogue terrorist organization.


26 posted on 01/19/2021 8:54:02 AM PST by RideForever (wit)
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To: RideForever

Those are true statements.

Think the cia was even involved in domestic politics, jmo.

Respected, at one time fbi and cia. No longer trust any gov alphabet organization!! From experience and reading and even not reading what they should be investigating!!

Cynical? Yes! Prove me wrong is the way now.


27 posted on 01/19/2021 9:04:07 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim
“Where was Nancy Pelosi? (During the Capitol Hill dust up on 6 January 2021)

It’s her job to provide Capitol security,” asked the South Carolina Republican, Senator, Lindsey Graham!

28 posted on 01/19/2021 9:18:26 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)
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To: pilgrim

The Atlantic Story
JANUARY 15, 2021

The Boogaloo Bois Prepare for Civil War!

Story by Michael J. Mooney

As the FBI warns of violence, anti-government extremists are ready to get in on the chaos.

Let’s start with what boogaloo isn’t.

It isn’t, mainly, a white-supremacist organization, though there are some white-supremacist boogaloo bois.

It isn’t a collection of Trump supporters ready to fight for the president, like, say, the Proud Boys. Despite the various attacks—planned or carried out—against police officers and government officials, boogaloo also isn’t a militia in any traditional sense of the word. It isn’t even really a movement.

It’s more like an absurdist internet culture propagated by libertarian-leaning gun enthusiasts on 4chan—the anonymous, Wild West version of Reddit—that has somehow moved into the real world. It’s jargon and memes and jokes and a sometimes-serious desire to bring about a violent revolution to overthrow the U.S. government.

Like nearly everything about boogaloo, the ideas and terminology are simultaneously ridiculous and terrifying.

The term boogaloo, for example, can refer to the purveyors of this culture or to an event: a violent revolution some of them hope to hasten, dubbed Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo. The name itself is a takeoff on a pervasive internet joke, an allusion to a 1980s dance movie, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. (Take a moment to pity historians, centuries from now, as they try to understand how the name of a dance-movie sequel turned into the name of a proposed nationwide insurrection.)

JJ MacNab has studied anti-government extremist groups for more than 20 years. As a fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, she’s tracked the boogaloo bois online since last fall, when she saw an uptick in memes calling—in a jokey way—for a civil war.

Excerpted: More at the link below & become totally confused!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11-VH-CHC-sr_Olsqf9jutQy6qYJBlPeoL-3SvqhPAAU/edit


29 posted on 01/19/2021 9:20:16 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)
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To: Grampa Dave

Know very little, basically nothing, re: Boogaloos!

When it suits the satanists template President Trump will be the problem. You ‘lerned me sumpin’.

Raheem Kassam, mentioned something re: Accelerator groups. Had never heard of them either.


30 posted on 01/19/2021 9:27:20 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim

David Bailey: BLM History and killing an innocent woman in our capitol?

https://redpilled.ca/redpilled-media-exclusive-us-capitol-police-agent-david-bailey-who-killed-ashli-babbitt-was-the-same-officer-that-let-steve-scalise-get-shot-in-2017-exclusive-evidence/

Left wing killer in action at the capitol on 6 Jan 2021


31 posted on 01/19/2021 9:27:26 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)
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To: Grampa Dave
US takes back its assertion that Capitol rioters wanted to 'capture and assassinate' officials

CNN Digital Expansion 2018 Katelyn Polantz

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

Updated 5:46 PM ET, Fri January 15, 2021

(CNN)Justice Department prosecutors have formally walked back their assertion in a court filing that said Capitol rioters sought to "capture and assassinate elected officials."

A federal prosecutor in Arizona asked a magistrate judge in a hearing on Friday to strike the line in a recent court filing about defendant Jacob Anthony Chansley, a man who is alleged to have led some in the crowd in the first wave into the Capitol with a bullhorn while carrying a spear and wearing a fur headdress.

The entire line the prosecutors want to omit from their court filing is: "Strong evidence, including Chansley's own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States Government."

The stunning move comes a few hours after Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney in Washington, DC, said at a press conference there was "no direct evidence of kill and capture teams" at this time in the siege of the Capitol building.

Excerpted:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/capitol-capture-assassinate-elected-officials/index.html?utm_content=2021-01-15T15%3A20%3A10&utm_source=twcnnbrk&

32 posted on 01/19/2021 9:30:22 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)
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To: Grampa Dave

Is he to receive another medal?


33 posted on 01/19/2021 9:31:10 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim

The article I posted about this mystery group is the best I have seen re describing them.


34 posted on 01/19/2021 9:32:35 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)
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To: Grampa Dave

“That ain’t what the congress critters are saying.’

They are sticking with the ‘first false’ report! It will last for years.


35 posted on 01/19/2021 9:32:59 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim

Nobody said nobody went in, but do you have video of them being violent? Everything looks like punks in black wearing Maga hats.


36 posted on 01/19/2021 9:47:31 AM PST by bray (Pray for President Trump)
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To: bray

>>>Those groups were outside but from the video you only see Antifa and BLM.<<< (Only see Antifa and BLM?)

Was responding to that statement! Now you seem to be changing the statement?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But.

Well, the Florida house husband, did abscond with Nancy’s podium. One of the worst happenings, imo. Not sure of the woman who stole Nancy’s laptop was affiliated with.

The vet that got shot was only climbing through a window, broken by either a blm/antifa instigator.

Was NOT trying to negate you in any way. Clarification only.

Take care........pilgrim


37 posted on 01/19/2021 10:15:23 AM PST by pilgrim
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To: pilgrim

So to these leftwing extremist morons in the article, an organization that takes oaths to defend the Constitution seriously, is somehow “antigovernment?”

Leftwing nut stupidity.


38 posted on 01/19/2021 10:16:19 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: pilgrim
Propaganda from leftwing extremist hate groups... I note they missed that : "While prosecutors have so far identified about 300 suspects accused of involvement in the riots, with one or two exceptions, they’ve not tied them to any known extremist groups.

The one or two exceptions just happen to be John Earle Sullivan founder of the extreme left antigovernment group InsurgenceUSA and his assidtant.

39 posted on 01/19/2021 10:30:40 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa

Dare say, that a lot if not most were on gov alphabet payroll in some capacity? jmo.


40 posted on 01/19/2021 10:32:25 AM PST by pilgrim
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