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- Proud Boys may have planned the Capitol siege as revenge on law enforcement, the FBI said.
- Officials say that Proud Boys charged for the riots, including Ethan Nordean, prepared for violence.
- Proud Boys were angry that police didn’t stop one of their members from stabbed at a December rally.
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Investigators are probing whether members of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys might have planned elements of the Capitol siege ahead of time to get revenge on members of law enforcement, the FBI said in a newly-released affidavit.
In court filings, first reported by the Washington Post, for the case of Seattle Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean, FBI agents said that some Proud Boys including Nordean prepared for violence in advance.
The affidavit states that some Proud Boys may have come to the Capitol seeking to retaliate against law enforcement after one of their members was stabbed in a December protest in Washington, D.C. Four people in total were stabbed at the December 12 demonstration, where Proud Boys gathered in Washington to protest the upcoming Electoral College vote.
Nordean, who has also gone by the name Rufio Panman, was charged by federal prosecutors on Wednesday with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, knowingly entering or remaining in restricted building or grounds, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
The Department of Justice said that Nordean “posted a message asking for donations of ‘protective gear’ and ‘communications equipment’ in late December about a week before the insurrection and posted another video on January 4, two days before, with the caption, “Let them remember the day they decided to make war with us.”
The Post reported that in video live-stream footage from just before the attack Nordean could be seen yelling at police: "You took our boy in, and you let our stabber go." Nordean was referring to the arrest of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio for property destruction in D.C.
The Proud Boys are a predominately male far-right group national whose members espouse bigotry and misogyny. On Tuesday, the government of Canada classified the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization.
The first wave of prosecutions in the Capitol siege charged rioters with offenses including entering and remaining in a restricted building illegally, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and in some cases, theft of US government property.
Now, investigators are refocusing their wide-ranging probes of rioters on whether the violence was coordinated ahead of time, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. which could lead to more complex conspiracy and sedition charges for rioters.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that prosecutors at the Department of Justice are also considering prosecuting rioters under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a law originally designed to prosecute mafia and organized crime rings.
In RICO prosecutions, prosecutors must show that multiple defendants constitute a criminal enterprise and that they committed two or more crimes.