As our own court filings and thousands of public videos of the event attest,
- Perpetrators punched dozens of law enforcement officers, knocking some officers unconscious.
- Some perpetrators tackled and dragged law enforcement officers. Among the many examples of such violence: One officer was crushed in a door. Another was dragged down a set of stairs, face down, repeatedly tased and beaten, and suffered a heart attack.
- Some perpetrators attacked law enforcement officers with chemical agents that burned their eyes and skin.
- And some assaulted officers with pipes, poles, and other dangerous or deadly weapons.
- Perpetrators also targeted, assaulted, tackled and harassed journalists and destroyed their equipment.
With increasing numbers of individuals having breached the Capitol, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives — including the President of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence — had to be evacuated.
As a consequence, proceedings in both chambers were disrupted for hours — interfering with a fundamental element of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next.
Those involved must be held accountable, and there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice.
It is impossible to overstate the heroism of the Capitol Police officers, Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers, and other law enforcement officers who defended and secured the Capitol that day. They demonstrated to all of us, and to our country, what true courage looks like.
Their resolve, their sacrifice, and their bravery protected thousands of people working inside the Capitol that day.
Five officers who responded selflessly to the attack on January 6th have since lost their lives.
I ask everyone to please join me in a moment of silence in recognition of the service and sacrifice of:
Officer Brian Sicknick.
Officer Howard Liebengood.
Officer Jeffrey Smith.
Officer Gunther Hashida.
And Officer Kyle DeFreytag.
I know I speak for all of us in saying that tomorrow, and in our work in the days ahead, we will not only remember them — we will do everything we can to honor them.
In the aftermath of the attack, the Justice Department began its work on what has become one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history.
Only a small number of perpetrators were arrested in the tumult of January 6th itself. Every day since, we have worked to identify, investigate, and apprehend defendants from across the country. And we have done so at record speed and scale — in the midst of a pandemic during which some grand juries and courtrooms were not able to operate.
Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the FBI’s Washington Field Office, DOJ personnel across the department — in nearly all 56 field offices, in nearly all 94 United States Attorneys’ Offices, and in many Main Justice components — have worked countless hours to investigate the attack. Approximately 70 prosecutors from the District of Columbia and another 70 from other U.S. Attorney’s Offices and DOJ divisions have participated in this investigation.
So far, we have issued over 5,000 subpoenas and search warrants, seized approximately 2,000 devices, pored through over 20,000 hours of video footage, and searched through an estimated 15 terabytes of data.
We have received over 300,000 tips from ordinary citizens, who have been our indispensable partners in this effort. The FBI’s website continues to post photos of persons in connection with the events of January 6th, and we continue to seek the public’s assistance in identifying those individuals.
As of today, we have arrested and charged more than 725 defendants, in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia, for their roles in the January 6th attack.
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