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In the wake of a deadly attack many of them helped incite, Republicans are only continuing their descent into ignominy. The only way out is for them to take responsibility for their actions and actually admit that they helped their mentally unhinged leader—Donald Trump—sic a mob of his foaming-at-the-mouth cultists on U.S. lawmakers at the Capitol last week. 

Instead, they have dug in their heels and unleashed a Gatling gun round of finger-pointing at Democrats, who are moving swiftly to hold Trump to account through impeachment charges. Democrats, they claim, are being divisive by trying to protect the country from further abuses by a madman.

The Washington Post writes:

Shortly before convening a conference call of House Republicans on Monday, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sent a missive asserting that “an impeachment at this time would have the opposite effect of bringing our country together when we need to get America back on a path towards unity and civility.” …

“After the abhorrent violence we saw last week, our country desperately needs to heal and unify,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said. “I have concerns that impeachment proceedings will only divide us further.”

McCarthy’s empty rhetoric about “unity and civility” is particularly precious given his role in perpetrating Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. Not only did he sign on to the GOP legal challenge to the election results and vote to oppose congressional certification after the siege, he also used his platform to push Trump’s baseless claims into the ecosphere.

Immediately following the election, McCarthy started pumping Trump’s crap to the GOP base. “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet,” McCarthy told Fox News viewers on Nov. 5. “We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes … join together and let’s stop this.”

Other GOP lawmakers also bear unique responsibility for helping to foment the deadly violence:

• Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama speaking at the MAGA rally last week: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. … Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?”
• First-term Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado called the day Republicans’ “1776 moment.”
• Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona repeatedly called Joe Biden an “illegitimate usurper” while promoting numerous “Stop the Steal” events. “Be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House,” Gosar counseled in an op-ed titled “Are We Witnessing a Coup d’État?” 

There’s much much more, and The New York Times has a nice roundup of it. 

But the GOP, and particularly its leadership, is continuing to prove that there’s no end to how morally bankrupt the party is—not even after they helped inspire a violent coup attempt that cost lives. Just like with Trump, there’s no bottom.

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The army has begun an investigation into Fort Bragg psychological operations officer Cap. Emily Rainey’s participation in leading a group of people to the Jan. 6 events in Washington, D.C. Rainey brought 100 members of the Moore County Citizens for Freedom (MCCF) from North Carolina to the Washington rally-turned-riot-turned-insurgency. Rainey has told the Associated Press that she knew of no one in her group who entered the Capitol building and that her group had been back to their buses long before the curfew time. “I was a private citizen and doing everything right and within my rights.”  

The issue, however, seems not to be whether or not Rainey—who has been in trouble for other bad-decision making concerning conspiracy theories and the public good—broke the law on Jan. 6. Soldiers are allowed, as public affairs officer with Fort Bragg Joe Buccino explains, to “participate political rallies, provided they do so in civilian clothes, provided that they adhere to all laws.” However, the issue is whether Rainey broke the Department of Defense rules prohibiting active-duty service members from sponsoring or leading partisan organizations. Rainey’s MCCF, which she says is non-partisan, began as an anti-mask, anti-vaccine mandate group.

Rainey’s group has promoted the Jan. 6 event for some time on its social media platform. They’ve also included video of jingoistic, maskless, but seemingly peaceful protests on their site with the caption: “This is what a peaceful protest looks like. They should pray we stay that way.” Huh. That seems sort of threat-y. The 30-year-old Rainey was set to retire from the 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg this April. Her decision to retire came after Rainey was charged by local police in May with “injury to personal property” after she removed caution tape put up in a downtown playground in Southern Pines, North Carolina, as part of a COVID-19 public health protest. Rainey reportedly asked for retirement in the fall and was granted an April out date sometime around December.

Spokesperson for the 1st Special Forces Command Maj. Daniel Lessard told the AP that there was no evidence that any other members of command or parts of Rainey’s division were in the Capitol. Dozens of law enforcement personnel are already under investigation for their participation in the riot and insurgency at the Capitol building. 

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—soon to be the Senate majority leader—is calling for the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol to be added to the no-fly list. Schumer urged that move in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, additionally calling for the insurrectionists to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Videos of rioters learning they couldn’t fly home have become popular online content after American Airlines banned some and others were blocked or removed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

As tempting as it is to think about these violent terrorists being banned from air travel, and as much as they should absolutely face consequences for their actions, there are serious problems with the no-fly list, as the ACLU has highlighted repeatedly over the years. For instance, “innocent, law-abiding Americans have found themselves subject to relentless hassles, interrogation and searches every time they try to travel by air.  They may share similar names with those who have been placed on suspect lists, or be the victims of random error, malicious discrimination, or mysterious bureaucratic quirks.” You don’t have to have any sympathy for these specific asshats to see the problems with such a system.

At the same time, flight attendants and other workers who have to deal with air travelers shouldn’t have to face the kind of abuse that Trumpists frequently deal out. “Acts against our democracy, our government and the freedom we claim as Americans must disqualify these individuals from the freedom of flight,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) said in a statement following the attack on the Capitol.

Then again, if the people who stormed the Capitol were in prison, they couldn’t fly anyway.

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Contradicting numerous administration claims, The Washington Post reports that the FBI did indeed have advance information that attendees at the Jan. 6 rally promoted by Donald Trump were planning violence, and in fact shared their plans to attack the U.S. Capitol. The Norfolk, Virginia, FBI office assembled a report describing those plans, based on communications between extremists, and officials at the bureau’s head office were briefed of those dangers one day before the attacks.

A sample call for violence featured in the report, as reported by the Post:

“Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa [sic] slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”

Planners also shared maps of the inside of the Capitol, and of the tunnels underneath the building that lawmakers could potentially escape to.

Again, then, we have confirmation that top FBI officials were aware of a threat to Congress posed by the assembling far-right extremists—confirmation that goes against Trump administration claims that the violence was not foreseen. There is no question that top administration officials were aware of plans for violence, because those plans were being publicly made, extremism experts were warning of them, and law enforcement was collecting evidence of them.

Despite all these warnings, Capitol Police forces received no backup from federal law enforcement or the Department of Defense. Not the standard backup provided during far smaller planned protests. Not any.

Defenses from Trump administration officials have ranged from flatly lying about the incident, as with claims that the violence was not predicted, to racist claims that because the assembled crowd was white Trump supporters, it was thought that the risk of violence was lower than during other protests. But Trump and his top officials conspicuously filled top ranks of each department with only the most trusted of allies, and conducted wholesale purges of the disloyal inside the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and other key federal posts responsible for responding to this violence. It was not subtle, and it escalated in recent months.

The simplest explanation for why agencies under the control of Trump’s own vetted allies would ignore even cursory safety precautious as the most violent extremists in America flocked to a protest at the U.S. Capitol, one specifically demanding the overthrow of U.S. government, is that Trump’s installed loyalists conspired to do so. This is not a shocking conspiracy theory; it is what Trump’s installed loyalists have done as Trump has committed all number of other crimes and manipulations. Trump’s top officials stonewalled Congress, refusing to provide testimony after they witnessed Trump attempting to extort a foreign leader for his own benefit, and assisted him afterward in purging from government those that did testify.

The lack of security at the Capitol was an intentional act. We do not yet know how many officials participated, but it required the cooperation of at least several. All the others should be investigated for gross incompetence. It is one thing to be caught unaware by a violent planned attack that was widely being warned of beforehand. It is another to refuse to provide rescue during the attack, as congressional leaders and the vice president hid in safe rooms and called various agencies warning that there were injuries, possibly deaths, and that many other lives were now in danger.

That is treason, and should result in more than mere resignations.

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Egged on by Donald Trump and emboldened by their deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, far-right extremists are planning multiple armed attempts to overthrow the government. The Capitol Police briefed House Democrats on the plans Monday night, warning them not to divulge too many details, HuffPost reports, because it could compromise the law enforcement response or provide additional publicity that would draw new participants.

One of the plots would have armed terrorists surrounding the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court, trying to block the functioning of government and likely assassinating congressional Democrats as they tried to go to work. If for some reason you weren’t yet comfortable calling the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol a coup attempt, you need to get comfortable with that word real fast.

“They were talking about 4,000 armed ‘patriots’ to surround the Capitol and prevent any Democrat from going in,” is how Rep. Conor Lamb described the plot in a CNN interview. “They have published rules of engagement, meaning when you shoot and when you don’t. So this is an organized group that has a plan. They are committed to doing what they’re doing because I think in their minds, you know, they are patriots and they’re talking about 1776 and so this is now a contest of wills.”

Another planned far-right event is trying to be the “largest armed protest ever to take place on American soil,” and a third would be in honor of Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed by police while trying to forcibly enter the Speaker’s Lobby of the Capitol. 

While some Republicans might also be targeted for their refusal to try to overturn the elections and keep Trump in the White House, there’s also a concern that “all these members [of Congress] who were in league with the insurrectionists who love to carry their guns” could themselves pose a threat. “You can’t just let them bypass security and walk right up to [Joe] Biden and [Kamala] Harris at inauguration,” one of the Democrats on the call told HuffPost.

The briefing was “horrifying, the most chilling hour imaginable,” someone on the call told The Hill. “If you weren’t afraid when you got on the call, you were afraid when you got off,” another said.

That call was held after reports of FBI warnings of planned violence and increasing danger signs from the online conspiracist far right. In the wake of Parler being shut down and with law enforcement now—finally, belatedly—paying attention, the extremists are moving their planning to secret channels.

Donald Trump owns this. He has encouraged his supporters to believe that the election was stolen, that their country is being stolen, that armed insurrection is the right response. Congressional Republicans own this, from senators like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to House members like Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, and many more—including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has encouraged them.

People are going to die. It sounds like law enforcement is maybe starting to come to the realization that yes, far-right domestic terrorists are a major threat, and that perhaps it’s time to do something about that before they assassinate most of Congress. But even if the Capitol Police and FBI and Secret Service and whoever else manage to protect every significant member of the government, this is a profound threat to democracy and to the government. It needed to be shut down long ago, but now will just have to do. And recognizing Trump’s role in this is critical—if the leader of the insurrection is allowed to stay at the head of the government without penalty, then of course his followers will have reason to think they can get away with literal mass murder.

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Soon-to-be-twice impeached Donald Trump is ending his white supremacist presidency the same way he started his campaign more than five years ago: racist, anti-immigrant fearmongering. Having basically gone into hiding after inciting a violent mob of seditionist supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results—and resulted in numerous deaths, including of a police officer—Trump is traveling to Texas on Tuesday to bluster about the border wall that Mexico never did end up paying for.

The Associated Press reports that missing from the visit will be unlawfully appointed acting DHS Sec. Chad Wolf, who resigned Monday. But following the D.C. attack (nice job securing the “homeland” there, Chad), elected officials, editorial boards, and border communities are demanding Trump stay away too. “Normally we would welcome a presidential visit to our state. Not now,” the American-Statesman Editorial Board wrote. “Not by a president who is unhinged and unrepentant for the violent mob he sent last week to the Capitol.”

“The stated reason for Trump’s visit to Alamo is to tout his administration’s work on the border wall and immigration,” the American-Statesman Editorial Board continued. “Indeed, Trump is wrapping up his term on the same note that he launched his political career, stoking fear about immigrants and exaggerating his accomplishments.”

June 16, 2015, will always live in infamy as the day he launched his presidential campaign by descending the escalators at Trump Tower to call Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. ”When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

His comments were blatantly racist and disqualifying, but too many in the mainstream media were afraid to say so and instead merely labeled them “controversial.” Worse yet, others dismissed them as a joke. It wasn’t a joke or “controversial” to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans like me. He was talking about us. He talking about my parents and two older sisters, all born in Mexico. He was talking about me, the son of Mexican immigrants.

“Trump acts as if his legacy along the border will be construction of a ‘beautiful’ wall,” American-Statesman continued. “In truth, his legacy is one of destruction: Crying children pulled from their parents’ arms as part of his shocking family separation policy, with hundreds of kids still waiting to be reunited. Migrant kids dying in U.S. custody for lack of proper care. A shameful humanitarian crisis just south of the border as the U.S. turned its back on those who are lawfully seeking asylum. A degradation of America’s values and standing in the world.”

Now having incited a violent mob that my colleague David Neiwert writes was “intent on taking hostages and murdering them” and is now leading to an unprecedented second impeachment, Trump is returning to what he always goes to when desperate or in need of an ego boost: attacking immigrants (and doing it as likely his final trip in office).

“Rather than spend his last days in the Oval Office addressing the pressing Covid-19 pandemic and ensuring an orderly transition, Trump is doubling down on his xenophobic, white supremacist agenda,” Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) executive director Fernando García said in a statement received by Daily Kos. Indeed, the City of Alamo said in a statement it hasn’t even been contacted about Trump’s visit.

“His presence at the borderland is a provocation, and an act of violence in and of itself,” García continued. “Border communities are calling for the dismantlement of the wall of shame, racism and white supremacy. The wall and all it represents have no place in our society, and Trump must be held accountable.”

President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and our wins in Georgia provide an opportunity to take both executive and legislative action to protect undocumented communities attacked by the outgoing administration. I hope Trump has the time of his wretched life at his precious wall Tuesday because Biden has also pledged to not build another foot of it—and because it was built using swindled funds and has caused “incalculable” harm in the borderlands, there’s a strong case for knocking the motherfucker down. The human costs of Trump’s racism, however, the fomenting of violence and the unleashing of white supremacist forces, will not be so easy to scale back. That’s the “legacy” he’s leaving us. 

“It is a presidency that has prioritized sowing division, undermining our institutions and norms, and working tirelessly to marginalize the ‘other,’” American Immigration Council policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick writes. “For Trump, there were no people more “other” than those who came to our border and asked for our help.” He writes that that to truly “defeat Trumpism, as a nation we must embrace a more humane approach toward those who are different from us, one that respects the law and our obligations to the most vulnerable.”

“The Biden administration can start by restoring humanitarian protection, and finally moving away from the deterrence-based mindsets of the past decades and create a truly welcoming process at the border,” Reichlin-Melnick continued.

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The House of Representatives will vote Tuesday evening to tell Vice President Pence to “convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President.” Knowing that Pence will not do so, they will vote on Wednesday at 9 AM ET to charge Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” and will impeach him.

They could be joined by some Republicans. Republican leadership is not whipping votes against it. Members will be advised to “vote their conscience.” Which is a strange thing to assume 139 of them who voted to throw out the results of a free and fair election, including leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, even have. There will be a single impeachment article for “incitement of insurrection.”

“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” the resolution says. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.” Trump, as always, remains belligerent and defiant and again threatened his opponents with further violence. “For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our county and it’s causing tremendous anger. I want no violence,” he told reporters Tuesday.  

That of course will not stop the process. But what happens on the Senate side remains uncertain because it’s absolutely unprecedented. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, importantly, has advised Democratic senators that impeachment hearings are going to happen and to not even discuss censure as a possible alternative. They are exploring ways of moving forward. One includes an obscure emergency authority that would allow him and current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to end the recess, which is now set to end on January 19, and reconvene immediately after the House transmits the articles of impeachment. That requires McConnell’s cooperation and thus far no one in his office is answering calls from reporters, so no one knows whether this is really an option.

Another option Democrats are exploring is moving forward on parallel tracks, by referring the impeachment to the Senate Judiciary Committee for hearings and bypassing the floor for long enough to get critical nominations through. Another option is appointing a commission to investigate and produce a report the full Senate would then act on. Another possibility Biden has raised, that is potentially possible, according to experts the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent talked to is “[a] half-day on dealing with impeachment, and [a] half-day getting my people nominated and confirmed,” in Biden’s words.

Scholar Norman Ornstein told Sargent that the the Constitution allows the Senate to set its own rules and procedures on impeachment, “So in theory it is possible to move forward with other actions even as they’re doing a trial.” Adam Jentelson, a former senior adviser to Harry Reid and all around Senate procedural wonk, agrees. “The Senate can conduct this trial however it wants, so the bifurcation path is entirely doable,. […] Procedurally, it’s basically a matter of conducting a two-track approach.” It could, however, require unanimous consent giving the insurrectionists in the Senate a chance to make mischief.

Trump won’t leave voluntarily. Pence won’t force the issue. McConnell “ignored Trump’s calls before Wednesday’s siege and now has no plans to call him back, according to one official,” so he too is refusing to fulfill his oath and obligation to protect the country. The next week is going to be as fraught as the last, because the entire Republican Party sold its soul to Donald Trump five years ago, and sold out the country in the process.

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Donald Trump was given two chances Tuesday to turn down the heat of his cultists and take responsibility for his role in last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol as he addressed reporters at the White House and then once again at Andrews Air Force Base. He took a pass both times.

Instead, Trump registered his grievances, calling impeachment a “continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics.” Trump—forever the victim. And although he claimed he wanted “no violence,” Trump blamed Democrats for the toxic environment and sympathized with his supporters. “For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country and it’s causing tremendous anger.”

Trump also brushed aside any culpability for inciting the riot at the Capitol. “If you read my speech,” he offered, “it’s been analyzed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.”

Actually, exactly no one has said that. His cultists listening to him at The Ellipse knew exactly what Trump instructed them to do, so they marched straight over to the Capitol and did it. Hours into the insurrection, Trump’s legal counsel and aides inside the White House finally convinced him that he must release a video telling his supporters to leave because he and his family could be legally liable for the death and destruction they caused. 

And as reluctant as the media has been throughout Trump’s term to appropriately lay blame at his feet for his actions, reporters immediately drew a through line between Trump’s incendiary language in the speech and the tumult that ensued.

In any case, Trump has now addressed the American people for the first time since the assault he unleashed on the U.S. government and lawmakers. He is a miserable failure of a leader, showing zero remorse, integrity, or any inkling of human decency.

Watch:

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A second House Democrat has tested positive for COVID-19 after being forced to take shelter with House Republicans while Donald Trump’s terrorist mob rampaged through the Capitol on January 6. Rep. Pramila Jayapal announced her positive test Tuesday morning, following Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s diagnosis on Monday.

Jayapal was characteristically direct about what happened to her, pinning her COVID-19 directly on specific Republicans who “not only cruelly refused to wear a mask but recklessly mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one” and saying in a statement, “Too many Republicans have refused to take this pandemic and virus seriously, and in doing so, they endanger everyone around them. Only hours after President Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic—creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack.”

Jayapal went on to say that she continues to work while isolating—and that working to remove Trump from office is one of her key objectives. But she also called for penalties—“serious fines”—for House members who refuse to wear masks in the Capitol. “Additionally,” she said in the statement, “any Member who refuses to wear a mask should be immediately removed from the floor by the Sergeant at Arms. This is not a joke. Our lives and our livelihoods are at risk, and anyone who refuses to wear a mask should be fully held accountable for endangering our lives because of their selfish idiocy.”

In an interview with Rebecca Traister at The Cut last week, Jayapal had predicted this, saying “I’m quarantining now because I am convinced that where we ended up, in the secured room—where there were over 100 people and many were Republicans not wearing masks—was a superspreader event.”

It’s not even subtle that the Republicans refusing to wear masks overlapped dramatically with the Republicans working to delegitimize the election and encourage a coup: Reps. Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, Michael Cloud, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Doug LaMalfa, Markwayne Mullin, and Scott Perry refused to wear masks while locked down. Gosar, Biggs, Brooks, Gaetz, and Greene would rank very high on a list of those inciting insurrection.

“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks had said hours earlier to the crowd that went on to attack the Capitol. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”

Literally they incited a coup and then refused to do the bare minimum to protect the people they were locked down with from a pandemic. One form of evil is not enough for these people.

Best wishes to Reps. Jayapal and Watson Coleman for a swift recovery.

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Following the violent Capitol takeover on Jan. 6, members of the FBI and Washington, D.C. police are asking people to identify anyone who may have been involved in the attack. As names and photos continue to be shared on social media and other platforms, the truth that the rioters were not only working-class or “blue collar MAGA” is coming to light. Some Trump supporters who wreaked havoc have been identified as not only lawyers and CEOs but off-duty police officials.  Off-duty and former law enforcement officers were identified from at least six states including Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, California, Texas, Virginia, and Washington State. The individuals have either faced suspensions or been referred for internal reviews following social media posts, The New York Times reported.

Many of the posts in question were made and shared by the officers themselves. According to The Root, the increasing number of investigations into officer attendance and conduct follows an announcement from the Seattle Police Department on Friday. The announcement confirmed that two officers were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into their involvement in the Capitol invasion.

While being present outside the Capitol building while riots took place is not a criminal activity, those who participated in invading the building did take in criminal actions. Investigators are working to examine whether or not the officers identified took part. 

According to Politico, a current Metro D.C. police officer shared a Facebook post in which he noted that off-duty officers and members of the military who participated in the riots flashed their badges and I.D. cards in an attempt to invade the building. “If these people can storm the Capitol building with no regard to punishment, you have to wonder how much they abuse their powers when they put on their uniforms,” the officer wrote on Facebook. Capitol police noted that more than 50 law enforcement officers who responded to the violence on Wednesday were injured by the white supremacists.

Additionally, two Black officers who were on duty during the attack told BuzzFeed News that off-duty officers were among the rioters. One of the Black officers, who requested to remain anonymous, shared that off-duty officials not only flashed their badges but attempted to explain that this movement was supposed to help them. 

“You have the nerve to be holding a Blue Lives Matter flag, and you are out there fucking us up,” the officer said he told one group of protesters inside the Capitol. “[One guy] pulled out his badge and he said, ‘We’re doing this for you.’ Another guy had his badge. So I was like, ‘Well, you gotta be kidding.’”

The second officer recalled that he and other officers engaged in hand-to-hand combat in an attempt to fight off mob members and were outnumbered 10 to one. “We were telling them to back up and get away and stop, and they’re telling us, they are on our side, and they’re doing this for us, and they’re saying this as I’m getting punched in my face by one of them … That happened to a lot of us. We were getting pepper sprayed in the face by those protesters, I’m not going to even call them protestors, by those domestic terrorists,” the officer told BuzzFeed News.

Police officials were not the only public service members found taking part in Wednesday’s riots. NBC News reported that the names of multiple members of the New York Fire Department have been turned over to the FBI based on photographs of them participating in the failed coup. Members of the Sanford Fire Department in Florida are also being investigated after photos emerged online.

According to Reuters, at least one firefighter has been placed on administrative leave. Dozens of people have been criminally charged as the FBI seeks more information from the public to identify the criminals involved. Officials have urged media companies to preserve photos, videos, and other data related to the riots and crime scenes.