Charges after US Capitol insurrection roil far-right groups
Source: Associated Press
Charges after US Capitol insurrection roil far-right groups
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
June 2, 2021
Indictments. Infighting. Incarceration.
Former President Donald Trumps lies about a stolen 2020 election united right-wing supporters, conspiracy theorists and militants on Jan. 6, but the aftermath of the insurrection is roiling two of the most prominent far-right extremist groups at the U.S. Capitol that day.
More than three dozen members and associates across both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have been charged with crimes. Some local chapters cut ties with national leadership in the weeks after the deadly siege. The Proud Boys chairman called for a pause in the rallies that often have led to clashes with anti-fascist activists. And one Oath Keeper has agreed to cooperate against others charged in the riot.
Some extremism experts see parallels between the fallout from the Capitol riot and the schisms that divided far-right figures and groups after their violent clashes with counter-protesters at the Unite the Right white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The white supremacist alt-right movement fractured and ultimately faded from public view after the violence erupted that weekend.
I think something kind of like that is happening right now in the broader far-right movement, where the cohesive tissue that brought them all together being the 2020 election its kind of dissolved, said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab.
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