JANUARY 2022 “This is the Aftermath” Assessing Domestic Violent Extremism One Year After the Capitol Siege BENNETT CLIFFORD JON LEWIS Program on Extremism THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY JANUARY 2022 “This is the Aftermath” Assessing Domestic Violent Extremism BENNETT CLIFFORD JON LEWIS Program on Extremism THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. © 2022 by Program on Extremism Program on Extremism 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20006 www.extremism.gwu.edu Cover: ©REUTERS/Leah Millis TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 6 Executive Summary 7 Introduction 10 The Capitol Siege Participants 12 The Domestic Violent Extremist Response to January 6th 25 U.S. Domestic Counter-Extremism After January 6th 35 Conclusion 45 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was researched by the team at the Program on Extremism, including Lorenzo Vidino, Seamus Hughes, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Devorah Margolin, Andrew Mines and Haroro Ingram, and written by Bennett Clifford and Jon Lewis. This report was also made possible by the Program’s team of Research Assistants—Ilana Krill, Angelina Maleska, Jessa Mellea, Billie Singer, Callie Vitro, and Ye Bin Won—who provided crucial support with data collection, data verification, and final edits on the report. Finally, the authors thank Nicolò Scremin for designing this report, and Brendan Hurley and the George Washington University Department of Geography for creating the maps used in this report. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the George Washington University. The details contained in the court documents are allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 6 | THE PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On January 6, 2021, a mob composed of activists, unaffiliated sympathizers, and hardened extremists violently entered the United States Capitol, destroying property, assaulting law enforcement, and attempting to disrupt the American electoral process. During the siege, as it has come to be known, several thousand people are believed to have unlawfully breached the Capitol. The violence that day left five dead and more than a hundred injured.1 The Capitol Siege was a watershed moment for domestic violent extremism in the United States. In its immediate aftermath, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a nationwide investigation into the alleged perpetrators of the violence. It quickly became the largest investigation of its type in the Bureau’s history, heralding investigations in nearly all 50 states and 704 criminal charges to date (as of January 1, 2022).2 The breadth of the federal investigation has resulted in an unprecedented pace of prosecutorial activity, with nearly two criminal charges released per day on average during the first three months after the Capitol Siege. Today, a year after January 6, 2021, new charges are still being released every week, and the operational tempo for the DOJ and FBI has not significantly slowed. The events of that day also led the U.S. government to redesign its approach to counterterrorism, largely reorienting its focus from international to domestic extremism. At the same time, January 6, 2021, was not only a turning point for counterterrorism authorities, but has numerous ramifications for various American domestic violent extremist groups and their efforts to recruit and plan activities while avoiding law enforcement scrutiny. On the one-year anniversary of January 6, 2021, this report takes stock of the Capitol Siege’s impacts on domestic violent extremism in America, and the U.S. federal government’s efforts to respond to the threat over the past year. This research is based on the Program on Extremism’s Capitol Siege Database, a collection of over 20,000 pages of court documents from cases of individuals who have been federally charged for their participation in the Capitol Siege, as well as 1 The New York Times. 2021. “Inside the Capitol Riot: An Exclusive Video Investigation,” June 30, 2021, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/jan-6-capitol-attack-takeaways.html. 2 All data on arrests and prosecutions in this report is accurate as of January 1, 2022. “Ten Months Since the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol.” 2021. Department of Justice Press Release. November 9, 2021. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/ten-months-jan-6-attack-capitol. ASSESSING DOMESTIC VIOLENT EXTREMISM ONE YEAR AFTER THE CAPITOL SIEGE | 7 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, interviews with U.S. government officials and defense attorneys, media reports, and other open-source information.3 The report’s main findings are as follows: ● In the year since the Capitol Siege, federal authorities have arrested 704 people for their alleged roles in breaching the Capitol. The backgrounds and motivations of individuals in this cohort remain demographically, geographically, and ideologically diverse. ● Existing evidence shows limited correlation between an individual’s planning and coordination with domestic violent extremist groups prior to January 6th and their alleged participation in violent activities on January 6th. Examining the “spontaneous clusters”—individual siege participants who coordinated with others during the breach of the Capitol and jointly conducted violence—is vitally important to understand the nature of the violence at the Capitol and the potential for similar events in the future. ● Federal prosecutors allege that two domestic violent extremist networks were most responsible for mobilizing their followers to the Capitol on January 6th: the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. These groups have faced the bulk of the federal law enforcement pressure in the year following the Siege. ● The difference between the Oath Keepers’ and Proud Boys’ success in adapting to increased pressure and continuing their activities during the past year may be tied to the degree of decentralization in their leadership. The autonomy of local and regional Proud Boys chapters from their national leadership allowed them greater freedom to plan violent activities throughout 2021, even when major figures connected to the group were subject to significant federal investigations. ● Since January 2021, the U.S. government has made massive changes to its domestic counterterrorism architecture at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. In 2021, each major agency tasked with counterterrorism has adopted new policies and guidelines to address domestic violent extremism, in response to a first-of-its-kind push from the White House to develop a national strategy to counter domestic terrorism. 3 All court records cited in this report are available at “Capitol Siege Database.” 2022. Program on Extremism at George Washington University. https://extremism.gwu.edu/Capitol-Hill-Cases. 8 | THE PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ● Countering domestic violent extremist groups after the Capitol Siege will require continued innovations in categorizing and analyzing groups and actors, as well as coordinating information sharing between federal, state, local, and non-governmental authorities. ASSESSING DOMESTIC VIOLENT EXTREMISM ONE YEAR AFTER THE CAPITOL SIEGE | 9 INTRODUCTION One year ago, on January 6, 2021, a collection of individuals with allegiances to a wide variety of political causes, extremist groups, actors, and ideologies formed a mob and stormed the U.S. Capitol.4 The Capitol Siege was a dramatic manifestation of the broadening power, capacity, and recruiting strength of domestic extremists in the U.S. However, the violence and destruction committed by the mob on that day were far from the first examples of the threat posed by domestic terrorism to the United States, and they are unlikely to be the last. The January 6th Capitol Siege was in many ways the apex of the American domestic violent extremism threat that has metastasized over the past decade. And, moreover, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assessments, the events of that day will continue to serve as a lodestar for domestic extremism long into the future, as “these actors have been emboldened in the aftermath of the breach of the U.S. Capitol.”5 January 6, 2021 represented a crossroads for the nature of the threat from domestic violent extremists (DVEs) in the U.S., as well as for the U.S.’ domestic counterterrorism approach. In the wake of the Capitol Siege, American extremists and their adversaries in U.S. government agencies tasked with counterterrorism were both forced to reckon with the breach of the Capitol and its implications for recruitment, radicalization, and mobilization. During the past year, this dynamic led to strategic changes from each side. On the governmental side, this included an overhaul of the U.S.’ counterterrorism architecture and the largest federal domestic terrorism investigation in the FBI’s history. For extremists, January 6th changed how DVE groups avoid federal scrutiny, gain momentum for radicalization and recruitment, and calibrate their ideological alliances and messages.6 Drawing on court documents from the 704 individuals thus far charged with participating in the Capitol Siege, as well as from governmental reports, interviews, 4 “‘This Is Our House!’ A Preliminary Assessment of the Capitol Hill Siege Participants.” 2021. Washington: Program on Extremism at George Washington University. https://extremism.gwu.edu/ sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/This-Is-Our-House.pdf. 5 Wray, Christopher. 2021. “Examining the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.” Statement by Director Christopher Wray before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Federal Bureau of Investigation. June 15, 2021. https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/examining-the-january-6-attack- on-the-us-capitol-wray-061521. 6 Wray, Christopher. 2021. “Threats to the Homeland: Evaluating the Landscape 20 Years After 9/11.” Statement by Director Christopher Wray before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Federal Bureau of Investigation. September 21, 2021. https://www.fbi.gov/news/ testimony/threats-to-the-homeland-evaluating-the-landscape-20-years-after-911-wray-092121. 10 | THE PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY