Congresswoman, Democratic Representative of New Jersey Mikie Sherrill suspects some of her colleagues of having organized reconnaissance visits on January 5 for certain elements which attacked the Capitol the following day, the day of the ratification by Congress of the victory of Joe Biden in the November 3 presidential election.
With thirty of her colleagues, she therefore filed a written request for an investigation.
Read also: Violence on the Capitol: 15 people have been indicted by federal justice
In her letter, the elected official explains that these
“suspicious”
behaviors
had been the subject of reports the same day, January 5.
“Many of the signatories of this letter, including those of us who served in the military and are trained to recognize suspicious activity, as well as several members of our teams, witnessed the presence of a extremely large number of groups from outside the complex on January 5th.
This is unusual for several reasons, one of which is that access to the Capitol complex has been restricted since public tours ended in March of last year due to the pandemic, ”
it says in this mail.
"Visitors met by some members of Congress who signed this letter appeared to be associated with the White House protest the next day
," she said.
In fact, after the violence of January 6, investigators are trying to understand whether the actions of the rioters were spontaneous or if they proceeded from a certain degree of preparation, and in this case, whether the organizers benefited from internal complicity.
According to CNN, at least one of the participants in the demonstration explained that he coordinated with three elected Republican congressmen.
Two police officers from the Capitol have also been suspended and a dozen others are under internal investigation because they are suspected of aiding rioters.
A widely shared video on the Internet on Thursday shows rioters coordinating with each other, one inside the Capitol asking to send reinforcements, the other giving geographical indications from the outside, through a broken window. details on the location of the Capitol Halls.
Read also: Capture of the Capitol: the day when American democracy fractured
The Gizmodo site revealed that geolocation data from videos filmed by the rioters shows that users of the far-right Parler site were able to penetrate into the very heart of the building, into places to which access is usually closed. to the public.
In the days leading up to the assault, far-right forums such as TheDonald site, opened after Reddit shut down a sub-reddit of the same name, or the Parler site or the Telegram app, were full of calls for violence against the US Congress.
In one, transcribed by BuzzFeedNews, a participant in a forum on TheDonald asks,
"What do we do if Congress ignores the evidence?"
-
"We're attacking the Capitol!"
responds another, approved by 500 participants in the conversation.
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"You're right, we're doing that."