NEW: 20-year-old Nicholas James Brockhoff of Covington, Kentucky, arrested on Capitol attack charges. #GreenHornHoodlum
So.
The FBI really wanted to find Nick Brockhoff for obvious reasons. They added him to their list about two months after the attack and even produced a video to get more publicity.
Here’s the thing: It turns out he told officers his name — on body cam — on Jan. 6.
Here’s the video the FBI put out on March 18:
Here’s the affidavit. Body camera footage is the ID, they don’t mention any tips or anything. They just did a couple of checks afterwards and realized that yeah that was his real name that he gave them on video. justice.gov/usao-dc/case-m…
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Today’s arrest of Capitol defendant Kene Brian Lazo in Norfolk, Virginia, shows how useful open-source searching can be when combined with the FBI’s legal capabilities. They can just bust right through the walls that online sleuths run into. Let’s walk through it here.
The FBI gets a tip about someone with the Facebook account "Fam Council,” and the FBI finds that image on the “Fam Council page themselves. Then they also find this image:
The person had "Rodbustars" on the their helmet, so the FBI special agent searches for “Rodbustars” and finds “Rodbustars LLC,” which is owned by Kene Brian Lazo and his wife.
The Feds Asked The Public For This Capitol Rioter’s Name. He’d Already Given It To Them. huffpost.com/entry/nicholas…
Here's the video the FBI put together asking for help identifying Nicholas Brockhoff:
The Nick Brockhoff case once again illustrates the overwhelming nature of the Jan. 6 investigation. The FBI put resources into finding a suspect who had already told authorities his name on police body camera on Jan. 6. huffpost.com/entry/nicholas…
Kenneth Joseph Owen Thomas of Alabama — who allegedly went by “Pi Annon” and identified himself as the organizer of a “Maga Caravan” to D.C. — was arrested yesterday on a host of federal charges. #tanoncamo
FBI doesn’t specify precisely when they got a tip, but it just dawned on me that I heard about him (and watched a bunch of his YouTube videos) months ago. Too many suspects! (He’s from Ohio, but was arrested in Alabama.)
UPDATE: state Sen. Doug Mastriano (who propagated Trump's Big Lie) was photographed on at least three separate occasions with a Trump fanatic who bragged about macing cops on Jan. 6 and is wanted by the FBI. Nov., Dec. (in D.C.) and May (Giuliani event). huffpost.com/entry/samuel-l…
I want to be transparent here: I made a mistake. Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano has actually been photographed with a violent insurrectionist on the FBI’s Capitol wanted list on at least five occasions, not at least three times as I previously stated. Regret the error.
Additionally, the Mastriano-Giuliani event earlier this month was not the first Mastriano-Giuliani event that Samuel Lazar attended. He was also at that "hearing” in November. I always appreciate constructive criticism, please never hesitate to reach out.
Quick story. You may remember Taylor Michael Wilson, a white supremacist sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for an attack on an Amtrak train. huffpost.com/entry/neo-nazi…
Wilson attended the Unite the Right rally in Charleston, had a secret compartment with ammunition and white supremacist literature behind his fridge, and said during the attack that he wanted to “save the train from black people.” huffpost.com/entry/white-su…
It was a rare upfront, straightforward federal terrorism case against a domestic extremist, and it illustrated differences in the law / in the feds’ approach to domestic versus foreign terrorism. huffpost.com/entry/jeff-ses…