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Storm the Capitol

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Trump mob storms US Capitol

Protesters overrun Capitol 

Capitol Riot Seattle Police

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January 6th Reconciliation

 Kyle Fitzsimons

Image from Complaint & Statement of Facts filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia

Capitol Riot Trial

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in Washington

REUTERS

from Criminal Complaint filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia

A collage with Former President Donald Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Christopher A. Wray and an image from outside the Capitol in Washington, District of Columbia on January 6, 2021. 

J6Probe

Capitol Riot Marines Charged

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Michael Riley

Contributor

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D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) on Tuesday sued the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers over the Jan. 6 attack on Congress, seeking to use a law written to cripple the Ku Klux Klan to seek stiff financial penalties from the far-right groups that Racine alleges were responsible for the violence.

The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/d-c-lawsuit-against-far-right-groups-over-jan-6-capitol-breach/91d07796-38cb-4683-b0fe-60f0ee212693/" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington</a> cites the modern version of an 1871 law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was enacted after the Civil War to safeguard government officials carrying out their duties and protect civil rights. Two similar suits have been filed already this year related to Jan. 6 — one by Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, and another by a number of police officers who fought the rioters that day.

Racine’s suit, however, is the first effort by a government agency to hold individuals and organizations civilly responsible for the violence at the U.S. Capitol on the day Congress ceremonially confirmed President Biden’s 2020 election victory.

An attorney representing two of the defendants criticized the lawsuit after it was filed Tuesday, saying it targeted the wrong people.

“You can’t file a fantasy in court,” said Jonathon Moseley, who represents Zachary Rehl, president of the Philadelphia Proud Boys chapter, and Kelly Meggs, an Oath Keeper from Florida. “There were clearly violent people who assaulted police that day, but that wasn’t the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers.”

[Red Flags: The warnings that preceded the Jan. 6 attack]

A similar lawsuit led to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/11/23/charlottesville-verdict-live-updates/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">$26 million verdict</a> last month against more than a dozen of the nation’s most influential white supremacists and hate groups for their role in the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. That trial evidence drew heavily on the defendants’ text messages, social media posts and videos to reconstruct how they conspired in advance of the violence.

In the 1980s, a lawsuit drove an Alabama-based faction of the Klan into bankruptcy, forcing members to turn over their local headquarters to the family of a murdered Black man.

Leah Millis

Racine’s suit names as defendants Proud Boys International LLC, Oath Keepers and dozens of their most high-profile members — mostly individuals who are charged in federal court with committing crimes related to Jan. 6. The goal is to unravel the financing behind the groups and secure “full restitution and recompense” for the city of Washington, which has incurred huge costs for treating hundreds of injured officers.

“I think the damages are substantial,” Racine said in an interview. “If it so happens that it bankrupts or puts these individuals and entities in financial peril, so be it.”

He declined to say whether he had discussed the lawsuit with the Justice Department officials overseeing the criminal cases. Federal prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against individuals affiliated with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and the FBI continues to investigate those groups’ activities in the days and months leading up to Jan. 6.

Racine’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/d-c-lawsuit-against-far-right-groups-over-jan-6-capitol-breach/91d07796-38cb-4683-b0fe-60f0ee212693/" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">civil suit </a>was put together with the assistance of two nonprofit groups that focused on the Jan. 6 assault, the States United Democracy Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In addition, two private law firms are serving as pro bono outside counsel.

At a news conference, ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt called Jan. 6 “the most predictable terror attack in the history of our country,” and Racine thanked journalists for identifying the many “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/warnings-jan-6-insurrection/?itid=hp-top-table-main&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_6" title="www.washingtonpost.com">red flags</a>” that preceded that day.

“There is no substitute for bringing a civil suit that seeks damages against each of the individuals and groups responsible,” said Norman Eisen, a veteran of the Obama White House Counsel’s Office who co-chairs the States United Democracy Center with former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican. “It is a way to assure those bad actors never do it again.”

[Jan. 6 reconstruction: 17 calls for police backup in 78 minutes]

Jabin Botsford

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s nonvoting delegate in Congress, said the lawsuit could eventually provide much-needed resources to the city. She said $9 million in federal funding meant for the District would pay for costs related to Jan. 6, but that money does not cover medical treatment and leave for police officers.

One of the most badly injured was D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was shocked with a stun gun as rioters <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/dc-police-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">dragged him down the steps</a> of the Capitol. Fanone lost consciousness and was stripped of his badge and gun; he suffered a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury.

“The domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol and violently assaulted hundreds of brave law enforcement officers were stoked by groups promoting The Big Lie,” Fanone said in a statement. “Those of us who suffered physical and emotional harm trying to defend democracy will never forget, nor will we cease working to hold accountable everyone responsible for inciting the mob, wherever the evidence may lead.”

The lawsuit draws heavily on evidence gathered by federal prosecutors seeking to prove that dozens of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys members conspired to disrupt the peaceful transition of power. It says the defendants conspired “to prevent, interrupt, hinder, and impede, through force, intimidation, and threat . . . United States officials from discharging official duties of their offices and positions of trust as part of the formal process for counting and certifying the count of electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election and declaring a winner of the 2020 presidential election.”

[Prosecutors say Oath Keepers’ texts, communications show evidence of conspiracy]

Except for Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, all the named defendants in the lawsuit are also charged with federal crimes. Two have already pleaded guilty.

In the criminal cases, prosecutors have drawn on encrypted chats and emails to claim that the Oath Keepers planned for weeks in advance of Jan. 6 — recruiting new members, engaging in paramilitary training, setting up radios to stay in communication and stashing guns just across the river in Virginia.

Prosecutors say one Florida Oath Keepers member said in a Dec. 19 Facebook message that he had “formed an alliance” with the Proud Boys to “shut this [expletive] down,” and later referred to the Proud Boys as a “force multiplier.”

Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers’ founder, has not been charged with a crime, nor is he named as a defendant in Racine’s lawsuit. Charging papers in the criminal cases refer to him simply as “Person One.” Prosecutors say he designated leaders for the Jan. 6 operation, huddling with them before they went in the building and staying in touch with them as they stormed the Capitol.

The portrait drawn in court filings of the Proud Boys’ pre-Jan. 6 planning is more diffuse. While the Oath Keepers embrace military gear and terminology, the Proud Boys are styled as a social club for like-minded men; their adherents are charged in small groups rather than in a single overarching indictment.

[‘We got to hold onto this door’: How police made a stand against the Capitol mob]

Prosecutors say Proud Boys were among the first to knock down barricades and breach the Capitol windows Jan. 6 — paving the way for thousands of others to follow. Four prominent members of the group are set to go on trial in May.

Proud Boys leader Tarrio was jailed at the time of the riot for burning a “Black Lives Matter” flag stolen from a church during an earlier protest in D.C. But like Rhodes, he is described by prosecutors as coordinating with others who are accused of invading the building.

Only a few of the dozens of Proud Boy and Oath Keeper defendants have agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with the government; many are challenging the legal basis for the charges. They say they were not conspiring to use violence against police or politicians but in battle with leftist counterprotesters, who had tangled with right-wing agitators at previous rallies in support of President Donald Trump.

The Oath Keepers “intended to affect the actions of Congress: otherwise known as political demonstration and protest,” wrote Carmen Hernandez, who represents one defendant in that group.

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for Feature Writing, 2017

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for International Reporting, 2017

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2018

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2022

"October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election"

McGill University, BA 

Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 and 2022. In 2017 he was a co-finalist for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing and the Pulitzer for International Reporting. 

Devlin Barrett

Pulitzer Prize for work with a team of Washington Post reporters on Trump campaign and administration ties to Russia

Goldsmith Award for Investigative Reporting, finalist, for work with Washington Post team on Trump-Russia connections, 20187

John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, Columbia University, for work with Alan Miller, 2006

Golden Typewriter Award, New York Press Club, for series on campaign donors called "The Investors," for work with team from Wall Street Journal, 2002

National Press Club Consumer Journalism Prize for series on health-care legislation, 2000 

White House Correspondents Association, Raymond Clapper Memorial Award, for series on conflicts of interest in the federal courts with Star Tribune reporter Sharon Schmickle, 1996

Goldsmith Award for Investigative Reporting, finalist, for work with Sharon Schmickle on conflicts of interest on the federal bench, 1996

Pulitzer Prize, finalist, for work with Sharon Schmickle on conflicts of interest on the federal bench, 1996

George Polk award for work with Washington Post reporters on Trump connections to Russia, 2018

One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century

Investigative Reporting, Advanced Methods and Techniques, anthology edited by John Ullmann

Oberlin College, BA in Government and History, 1974

Stanford University, John S. Knight Fellowship, one year non-degree program

Tom Hamburger is an investigative reporter on the national desk of The Washington Post. He has covered the White House, Congress and regulatory agencies, with a focus on money and politics. 

Tom Hamburger

George Washington University, BA in Journalism and Political Science

Rachel Weiner covers federal courts in Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Va. 