Thread by @alanfeuer

Here is Thread #7 of posts on new arrests and case updates in the Capitol Hill insurrection investigation.
Previous threads archived below.

https://twitter.com/alanfeuer/status/1356210300115152898

In the last two days, the US attorney's office in DC has staffed up the Oath Keepers conspiracy case with 3 new prosecutors.
There are only three defendants at this point, perhaps suggesting more charges are pending.

John E. Sullivan of Utah was sent home after the Capitol riot even though he was charged w/breaking into the bldg in tactical gear & filming & cheering other rioters.
Now prosecutors want him in jail, saying he violated his release by appearing on Infowars & denying any regrets.

Prosecutors have unsealed new charges against Peter Schwartz from Owensboro, Kentucky for spraying a chem spray at Capitol police. A witness told the FBI that Schwartz is a felon recently released from prison due to COVID 19.

Jeffrey Grace of Washington was captured in the background of one of the most widely seen photos of the insurrection at the Capitol. When the FBI found him, he told agents he'd gone to DC to hear Trump speak, got separated from his son and followed a crowd into the building...

Group Chat Subject: "Patriot flight"
The FBI says Jason Hyland of Texas arranged the private jet that flew real-estate agent Jenna Ryan & others to the Capitol riot.
“Thanks for joining me to DC to stand up for America. This will be historic – no matter the outcome," he wrote.

Another Texas realtor, Katherine Schwab, has been charged w/storming the Capitol after flying to DC on the private jet with Jenna Ryan.

Schwab, a friend of Jacob Hyland (see above) who booked the jet, said she was among "a group of patriots" who flew in the private plane from Texas to DC.

After cops at the Capitol hit Kyle Fitzsimons in the head w/their batons, he dropped his shoulder & charged them, according to FBI.
Fitzsimons did this, the feds say, in butchers' whites and carrying an unstrung bow--a costume that held "an indiscernible symbolic value" to him.

The FBI says four of Brian McCreary's co-workers at a Massachusetts Domino's pizza ID'd him as the masked guy standing behind the Q Shaman.
McCreary later told agents that he knew going into the Capitol "might not have been legal," but that he "made a personal choice."

The FBI says that when Mark Aungst got back on the bus from DC back to Penn. on Jan. 6, he bragged about breaching the Capitol w/Tammy Bronsburg, aka the Pissed Off Patriot.
There was a retired cop on board.
The cop turned Aungst into the feds.

The charging docs for Rachel Powell, aka Bullhorn Lady, are out and it turns out she wasn't just using a bullhorn at the insurrection.
The FBI has photos of her in a pink hat using a large pipe to smash a window at the Capitol, causing $1000 in damage.

Catching up from last night:
Jason Riddle, a veteran, was arrested after he told NBC10 in Boston that he stole a bottle of wine from an office in the Capitol & watched other rioters breaking lamps & computers.
He said he “poured a glass of wine and watched it all unfold.”

The detention memo for Proud Boy Ethan Nordean filed overnight doesn't have a lot of new facts but it shows prosecutors are all in on the idea that the PBs helped plan the attack on the Capitol.
The exchange below b/t Nordean & Robert Gieswein may prove crucial in prosecution.

The memo, which indicates FBI searched Nordean's home in Washington on Weds, states clearly that the Proud Boys "knowingly and willfully participated in a riot that was designed to prevent the United States Congress from
certifying the results of the 2020 Presidential election."

It was also written by a seemingly woke prosecutor who notes that, even before Jan. 6, Nordean was "internet famous" for knocking out a counter-protester during a street brawl in Portland.

Prosecutors in Seattle are now arguing at a hearing to keep Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Proud Boys, in custody pending trial. They say there's a terrorism enhancement to the charges Nordean is facing.

Prosecutors say Nordean has no job at present and is living in a house owned by his parents, suggesting he has few financial ties to the community

Nordean's federal defender, Corey Endo, is arguing that his most famous prior public act of violence--the cold-cocking of a counter-protester in Portland late last year--was a punch thrown in self defense.

That Mr. Nordean is an alleged Proud Boy member or leader is no reason to detain him, Endo says.
She notes that Proud Boy Joe Biggs was released on his own charges last months.

Federal judge Brian Tsuchida in Seattle releases Proud Boy Ethan Nordean on bond pending trial.

Prosecutors have said they're going to appeal Proud Boy Erhan Nordean's release on bond pending trial.

New charges have been unsealed against another military veteran, John D. Andries, in connection with the Capitol attack, prosecutors say

In the past two days, three different Capitol riot suspects have blamed Trump for their actions:
*Patrick McCaughey said Trump was an unindicted co-conspirator in his case
*Ethan Nordean said he was "egged on" by Trump
*Matthew Miller said Trump "exhorted" people to go to Capitol

"We want Trump” Ryan Zink, of Lubbock, TX, said on a Facebook video as he moved toward the Capitol.
Then he turned the camera on himself, the FBI says, and and stated: “We stormed the Capitol. There’s thousands of us here. They can’t stop us all!”

"Lol I was there," Ryan Zink wrote on Facebook, helping the FBI bring charges against him. "The media lied about what time it was breached. I have pictures with time stamps to prove it.”

"Yes, for everyone asking I stormed the capital (sic)," Bruno Cua wrote on Instagram, leading to the federal charges that were unsealed today.
Cua said he'd do a "whole video explaining what happened," adding, "Yes, we physically fought our way in."

In Cua's complaint, the FBI included a screenshot from the New Yorker video showing him standing near former LTC Larry Brock. "They can steal an election," Cua can be heard saying, "but we can't sit in their chairs?"

"President Trump is calling us to FIGHT!" Cua wrote on Parler before the Capitol attack. "It's time to take our freedom back the old-fashioned way."

Prosecutors have asked a judge to detain Edward Jacob Lang, the "This is Me" guy, saying he attacked cops w/a baseball bat on 1/6.
"We are talking war," Lang said in a video obtained by FBI. "We need men up there, men who are going to pull cops down and out of there."

In a detention memo prosecutors say Lang engaged w/cops repeatedly from 240 pm until around 5 pm, taking breaks "to wash pepper spray out of his eyes."
"He armed himself & assaulted law enforcement w/the intent to unlawfully enter the Capitol & stop the functioning of our govt."

NEW: Oath Keeper Thomas Caldwell, accused of conspiracy in connection w/the Capitol attack, says he has held a Top Secret clearance since 1979, worked for the FBI and did consulting work, often classified, for government clients.

Caldwell, who denies being in the Oath Keepers, is seeking release from custody in new court papers referencing his numerous physical problems "associated w/service-connected injury."