DISINFO: Biden’s Justice Department fabricates false accusations against Trump supporters
SUMMARY
Biden’s Justice Department fabricates false accusations against Trump supporters who participated in the 6 January 2021 events on Capitol Hill, falsely declaring that they are "insurgents" and "domestic extremists".
RESPONSE
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on the 6 January riot and storming of the US Capitol Hill. The article’s message is consistent with a long-term pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign to discredit President Joe Biden’s electoral victory and undermine faith in the US electoral system and democratic institutions.
It is not true that the US Department of Justice has fabricated “false accusations” against participants in the 6 January 2021 events. The article fails to mention that the “January 6 events” were a violent assault involving weapons on Capitol Hill in which five people died and more than 150 were injured.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, 6 January 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., was stormed during a riot and violent attack against the U.S. Congress. A mob of supporters of President Donald Trump attempted to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election by disrupting the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes to formalise President-elect Joe Biden's electoral victory.
In the months since the attack on Capitol Hill more than five hundred people who participated in the four-hour insurgency have been arrested. The Department of Justice has collected massive evidence that extremists supporting Donald Trump organised,coordinated and launched the assault on Capitol Hill.
Charges include assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer, assaulting a member of the media or destroying their equipment, entering or remaining in a restricted building, entering the Capitol with a dangerous or deadly weapon, destruction and theft of government property, as well as obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding or attempting to do so. The most serious charges, presented against more than 40 of a total of over 500 defendants so far, are those of conspiracy.
The article’s claim that participants in the January 6 storming of Capitol Hill are falsely labelled “extremists” by US authorities is false. Hundreds of those arrested are linked or have had links to national militias, criminal gangs or are Qanon group supporters, cases for which the Justice Department has created a specific category in a framework for prosecutions to include attackers linked to right-wing extremist groups such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers or Three Percenters. More than a dozen of those arrested were active members of a US military or police force. An individual list of cases can be read here.
Read similar cases claiming that Washington persecutes Capitol protesters on terrorism charges for having different political ideas, and that US authorities refuted that the assault on the Capitol was a terrorist act.