Milles have called to identify Capitol attackers 2:54
Washington (CNN) -
The U.S. Justice Department first detailed the scale of its investigation into last week's assault on the Capitol on Tuesday.
Officials promised to hold all participants who broke the law accountable.
The acting US attorney for Washington, Michael Sherwin, told reporters that the agency is launching "a long-term investigation" that "will not be resolved overnight."
"This is just the beginning".
Here are the key takeaways from Tuesday's press conference.
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They have opened more than 170 criminal files
Officials have opened more than 170 criminal files, that is, people identified as potentially committing crimes, on protesters on Capitol Hill.
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Sherwin said this includes people who potentially committed crimes on or off the Capitol grounds.
He added that he anticipates that the number of open files "will grow to hundreds in the coming weeks."
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The Justice Department has charged in "more than 70 cases"
Of the 170 subject files cases have been opened so far, Sherwin said the Justice Department has filed charges in more than 70 cases.
That number is also expected, Sherwin said, "to rise to the hundreds" as the investigation unfolds.
The agency is studying "charges of sedition and conspiracy"
On the types of cases the Justice Department is charging, Sherwin said, the "range of cases" and the misconduct they are seeing "is really mind-boggling."
This includes "serious crime cases related to sedition and conspiracy," he said.
Those charges would carry prison terms of up to 20 years.
Seeing those charges is a "strike force" in the US Attorney's Office in Washington, Sherwin added.
"His only marching orders," he said, are to build sedition and conspiracy charges related to "the most heinous acts that occurred on Capitol Hill, and these are important charges that carry serious crimes with prison terms of up to 20 years."
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There was a "fight with open hands" with the police officers
Sherwin said Tuesday that the Justice Department has placed emphasis on investigating the agitators who engaged in "open-handed combat" with police officers during the Capitol rape.
A clearer picture of what happened inside the Capitol, Sherwin said, “will come into full focus, I think over the next few weeks and days, and I think people are going to be shocked at some of the egregious contacts that happened inside the Capitol. Capitol".
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The homemade bombs left outside the party headquarters were real
FBI Deputy Director Steven D'Antuono, who spoke alongside Sherwin at Tuesday's press conference, said the FBI is seeking information on a person or persons who helped plant homemade bombs outside the Republican and Democratic headquarters, the last week.
D'Antuono said the bombs were real and had timers.
"We don't know exactly why they were not fired," he added.
The FBI is considering putting some agitators on the "no-fly list"
D'Antuono also said the agency is considering preventing those who attacked the Capitol last week from boarding planes by adding them to the federal no-fly list.
When asked by CNN's Evan Perez about the pass, D'Antuono said: "Regarding the no-fly list, we looked at all the tools and techniques that we could possibly use within the FBI and that's something that we are actively looking into." .
The authorities are watching the attacks on the press
Investigators are also looking at attacks by rioters specifically against journalists, Sherwin said.
"Some people are not familiar that some of those rioters specifically targeted members of the media and assaulted them," he said.
“So we have assigned specific prosecutors in our office to focus on those cases as well.
And I'm naming all these different attack forces to emphasize no matter who the victim was, no matter who the perpetrator was, we are treating all these cases equally.
- CNN's Katelyn Polantz, Pete Muntean and Greg Wallace contributed to this report.
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