Photo: Capitol riots inspire graffiti in Syria
W. Va. GOP lawmaker charged after videoing himself rioting inside Capitol
A West Virginia Republican legislator who recorded and then deleted a video of himself storming the U.S. Capitol with a mob has been charged in connection with Wednesday's riots.
Del. Derrick Evans, a Republican West Virginia state representative, was charged Friday, NBC News confirmed.
Despite coming under mounting pressure to resign, Evans has refused to do so.
Nearly 32,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding that Evans step down.
Evans livestreamed a video on his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon outside the Capitol as rioters who support President Trump pushed against a police barricade.
"Bring the tear gas. We don't care," Evans is heard yelling. "We're taking this country back whether you like it or not. Today's a test run. We're taking this country back."
At another point, he's heard asking, "Where's the Proud Boys?" referring to the far-right, all-male, self-described group of "Western chauvinists."
Man with foot up on desk in Pelosi's office at Capitol arrested
WASHINGTON — A man photographed casually sitting with his foot on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office at the U.S. Capitol while a pro-Trump mob rampaged the halls of Congress was arrested Friday, law enforcement officials said.
Richard Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas, was taken into custody in his home state on charges of entering and remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry and theft of public property. Further details were not immediately available.
Apparent images of Barnett were splashed across social media as the deadly mayhem unfolded in the nation's capital on Wednesday, just as Democratic and Republican lawmakers convened to count the Electoral College votes.
At least two Dems in Congress say rioters stole computers
At least three Democrats in Congress said that the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday stole computers from their offices, raising cybersecurity concerns.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a laptop stolen, as did Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who tweeted about the theft.
It wasn't immediately clear what protections were on those devices, though Congress generally lags behind the federal government in implementing cybersecurity measures. Not all Senate computers automatically encrypt their hard drives or require a password to log in if they're unused for a few minutes. Emails were visible on a desktop computer left running in Pelosi's office.
While experts say most congressional laptops shouldn't provide easy access to classified material, both the Senate and House connect to a centralized email server, and staffers' computers likely contain months or years of emails and other sensitive material.
“There’s a very good chance that a lot of sensitive and possibly secret information could have been leaked by those people being in there and taking stuff,” said Lou Rabon, the CEO of Cyber Defense Group, a cybersecurity consultancy based in Los Angeles.
Clyburn: House should make Trump only president to be impeached twice
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said that the House must impeach President Donald Trump, musing that doing so would give the president another opportunity to be part of something unprecedented.
“He's always wanting to do stuff that has never been done before. There's never been a president impeached twice before. So, let's impeach him and give him what he wants," Clyburn said during a Zoom call with reporters.
“This is bad stuff. And it's time for everybody to call it what it is," he said. "It is time for the Republican leadership to invoke the 25th Amendment. They need to do it. Pence needs to do it. But if he doesn't, we need to impeach. We need to impeach."
Extremists made little secret of ambitions to 'occupy' Capitol in weeks before attack
A digital flyer made public on Instagram and Facebook in December made little secret of the ambitions of some of the people planning to visit Washington on Jan. 6: “Operation Occupy the Capitol.”
That call to arms is just one of the many warning signs on extremist sites and mainstream social media platforms that extremism experts say were easy to spot but ultimately disregarded by law enforcement in the runup to Wednesday's riot at the Capitol, which led to the deaths of five people, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly hit with a fire extinguisher during the melee.
On the fringe message board 8kun, which is popular with QAnon followers, for example, users talked for weeks about a siege of the Capitol, some talking about it like a foregone conclusion. Others simply debated how violent the uprising should be, and if police should be exempt.