Before protesters ransacked the United States Capitol, FBI agents signaled an online discussion forum full of plans for southern supporters to meet in South Carolina and meet in Washington, DC, and warned that the talks could lead to the violence.
The FBI report warned that supporters of President Donald Trump were sharing maps of the Capitol building complex and that some were asking others to be ready for war, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the document. Some would have made plans to drive to Washington in groups from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and South Carolina.
The full FBI document has not been made public, but the caravans reported in the Post’s January 5 memo report appear to coincide with the flyers posted on the pro-Trump website TheDonald.win, according to an analysis of the website by The Post and Mail. The caravans were dubbed “MAGA_CAVALRY”, a reference to the president’s slogan “Make America Great Again”.
According to postings about the caravan, the southern route was expected to converge on a mall parking lot in Columbia the day before Congress counted the electoral college votes. Then they would go north. The organizers called the route “Rebel”.
The plan seems to have come true. The day before the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, a Columbia police officer noticed a group that appeared to be holding a demonstration in the parking lot of the Dutch Square Center, a shopping center west of the city center, near the intersection of interstate highways 20 and 26.
The officer mentioned the group to a supervisor, but did not notice anything wrong, said Columbia police spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons. Moments later, just before 9:30 am, someone reported that the group was shouting obscenities. When an officer arrived, the group had dispersed.
On the message board, supporters spoke mainly about the logistics of the trip and how they were banned from a chat service. But some references openly to violence.
“Bring pitchforks, tar and feathers,” wrote one.
“Bats are very good flagpoles,” replied another.
“I’m going to Babe Ruth on some common zombies,” said another.
Five people, including a police officer, died after a protest led to a siege of the Capitol on January 6, damaging a sacred seat of government in the country. The attack led to Trump’s impeachment on Wednesday, making him the only U.S. president to face two charges.
It is unclear whether members of the caravans were directly associated with the violence that unfolded last week, and federal officials did not charge anyone in South Carolina for a crime associated with the riot on Thursday afternoon. Some people who attended the rally left before the riots started or did not participate. It is also unclear why South Carolina was chosen as a meeting point and how many residents of the state participated in the convoy.
The FBI also appears to have cited a separate topic on the same website calling for Washington violence against Congress and leftist activists.
According to the Post, the memo said: “An online topic discussed specific calls for violence, including the statement ‘Be ready to fight. … be violent. Stop calling it a march, rally or protest. Go there ready for war. We get our president or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal. ‘”
An almost identical message was posted on various topics on TheDonald.win before January 6, according to the Post and Courier. The site initially started out as a group on Reddit, but was later banned for hate speech.
The FBI memo warned that intelligence was not examined and that acting on it could violate protected First Amendment speech, according to The Washington Post.
Still, Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Field Office in Washington, said his office shared the information contained in the report with other federal and state law enforcement agencies shortly after receiving it.
But in South Carolina, the State Law Enforcement Division – South Carolina’s top investigative agency – was not informed of the FBI report, according to spokesman Tommy Crosby.
Representatives from the FBI’s field offices in Columbia and Norfolk, Virginia, where the report originated, refused to discuss the document and referred questions to FBI headquarters. A spokesman there also declined to comment.
Instead, in a statement, the FBI said it was focused on “identifying, investigating and stopping individuals who are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity” and that it was “gathering information to identify any potential threats and sharing those threats. information with our partners. ”
The statement added: “Our focus is not on peaceful protesters, but on those who threaten their safety and the safety of other citizens with violence and destruction of property.”
At a news conference this week, D’Antuono said the FBI had “stopped” the travel of some people who intended to cause violence in the Washington area.
“We have to separate the aspirational from the intentional and determine which of the individuals who say despicable things on the internet are just practicing keyboard bravado or they really intend to do harm,” he said.
Glenn Smith contributed to this report.