As members of the Oath Keepers paramilitary group shouldered their way through the mob and up the steps to the U.S. Capitol, their plans for Jan. 6 were clear, authorities say. “Arrest this assembly, we have probable cause for acts of treason, election fraud,” someone commanded over an encrypted messaging app some extremists used to communicate during the siege.

A little while earlier, Proud Boys carrying two-way radios and wearing earpieces spread out and tried to blend in with the crowd as they invaded the Capitol led by a man assigned “war powers” to oversee the group’s attack, prosecutors say.

These two extremist groups that traveled to Washington along with thousands of other Trump supporters weren’t whipped into an impulsive frenzy by President Donald Trump that day, officials say. They’d been laying attack plans. And their internal communications and other evidence emerging in court papers and in hearings show how authorities are trying to build a case that small cells hidden within the masses mounted an organized, military-style assault on the heart of American democracy.

“This was not simply a march. This was an incredible attack on our institutions of government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough said during a recent hearing.

The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers make up a fraction of the more than 300 Trump supporters charged so far in the siege that led to Trump’s second impeachment and resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer. But several of their leaders, members and associates have become the central targets of the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation.

It could mean more serious criminal charges for some rioters. On the other hand, mounting evidence of advance planning could also fuel Trump’s and his supporters’ claims that the Republican former president did not incite the riot and therefore should not be liable for it.

Defense attorneys have accused prosecutors of distorting their clients’ words and actions to falsely portray the attack as a premeditated, orchestrated insurrection instead of a spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage to stop Congress’ certification of Trump’s defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.

And prosecutors’ case against a man described as a leader in the Proud Boys’ attack took a hit last week when a judge ordered him released while he awaits trial, calling some of the evidence against him “weak to say the least.”

___

The Oath Keepers began readying for violence as early as last November, authorities say. Communications show the group discussing logistics, weapons and training, including “2 days of wargames.”

“I need you fighting fit” by the inauguration, one Ohio member, Jessica Watkins, told a recruit in November, according to court documents. “If Biden becomes president our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over. Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights,” she said in another message later that month.

As Jan. 6 neared, they discussed stationing a “quick reaction force” outside Washington that could bring in weapons “if something goes to hell,” according to court documents. Days before the attack, one man suggested getting a boat to ferry “heavy weapons” across the Potomac River into their “waiting arms.”

“I believe we will have to get violent to stop this,” that man, Thomas Caldwell of Virginia, said in a November message to Watkins. On Jan. 1, he took to Facebook to decry what he viewed as a rigged election, saying “we must smite them now and drive them down,” authorities say.

Authorities have acknowledged there’s no evidence Caldwell was a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers but have described him as a supporter who appeared to play a “leadership role” within the group.

There were plans for some Oath Keepers to be there in “grey man” mode without identifiable militia gear so they could blend in with the crowd.

“For every Oath Keeper you see, there are at least two you don’t see,” said a Jan. 4 email sent to members.

____

Two days before the attack, the Proud Boys’ top leader, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested shortly after he arrived in Washington and was charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a December protest.

Tarrio was ordered to stay away from the nation’s capital, so Ethan Nordean was given “war powers” to take charge of the group’s Jan. 6 activities, prosecutors say.

Nordean, a Proud Boys chapter president from Washington state known as Ruffio Panman, tapped his social media following to solicit donations of money and tactical gear for the rally, prosecutors said. On the day of Tarrio’s arrest, Nordean posted a link to a podcast in which he discussed baseless claims about fraud in the election.

“Democracy is dead? Well, then no peace for you. No democracy, no peace,” he said.

Publicly, Tarrio announced on social media that the Proud Boys wouldn’t be wearing their customary yellow-and-black polo shirts on Jan. 6 so they could be “incognito.” Joseph Biggs, a self-described Proud Boys organizer from Florida, echoed that in a social media post directed at counter-protesters.

“We will be blending in as one of you. You won’t see us,” Biggs wrote. “We are going to smell like you, move like you, and look like you.”

Privately, according to prosecutors, the Proud Boys arranged for members to communicate using specific frequencies on Baofeng radios, Chinese-made devices that can be programmed for use on hundreds of frequencies, making it difficult for outsiders to eavesdrop.

One of the Proud Boys who heeded the call to meet in Washington was Dominic Pezzola. He traveled from Syracuse, New York, on Jan. 5 and stayed with other members at a hotel, authorities say.

Another group of members came from the Kansas City area. Investigators believe their chapter leader, William Chrestman, brought a helmet, a gas mask and an ax handle that he would conceal as a flag.

They were ready for a fight, prosecutors say.

___

Long before the riot, Trump refused to condemn the Proud Boys during his Sept. 29 presidential debate against Biden, instead saying the group should “stand back and stand by.” Proud Boys members celebrated his words on social media, before the president later claimed not to know who they were. It’s unclear whether the Oath Keepers were on the White House radar.

Proud Boys members, who describe themselves as a politically incorrect men’s club for “Western chauvinists,” have frequently engaged in street fights with antifascist activists at rallies and protests. Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling it as a hate group.

The Oath Keepers are a loosely organized group of extremists who actively recruit current and former military, police and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies — foreign or domestic.

In the weeks before the attack, Trump and his supporters were making increasingly false and incendiary comments, designed to mobilize supporters to work to overturn the election results — even though there was no widespread fraud in the election, as was confirmed by election officials across the country and by Trump’s attorney general.

Trump encouraged thousands at the rally preceding the riot to “fight like hell,” but lawyers for the former president adamantly denied during his impeachment trial that he had incited the attack. They pointed to a remark during his speech in which he told the crowd to behave “peacefully” that day.

He was acquitted in a Senate trial of inciting the riot after he was impeached by the House, but GOP leaders said a more appropriate venue for his actions could be the courts.

___

As the mob swarmed the Capitol, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, was communicating with some of the alleged rioters.

“All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough,” he said in a Signal message to a group around 1:40 p.m., authorities say. A little later, Rhodes, who has not been charged in the attack, instructed the group to “come to South Side of Capitol on steps.”

Around 2:40 p.m., members of a military-style “stack” who moved up Capitol stairs in a line entered the building through a door on the east side, authorities say. Lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence had been evacuated from the House and Senate chambers just about 20 minutes earlier.

“We are in the mezzanine. We are in the main dome right now. We are rocking it. They are throwing grenades, they are fricking shooting people with paint balls. But we are in here,” Watkins declared over a channel called Stop the Steal J6 on the walkie-talkie app Zello.

“Get it, Jess. … Everything we (expletive) trained for,” someone responded, according to the communications obtained by WNYC’s “On the Media” program and detailed in court documents.

Caldwell, who did not join the stack, climbed up to the west side balcony, authorities say.

“We are surging forward, doors breached,” he said in a Facebook message about 10 minutes after the group went inside, according to court documents. Roughly 15 minutes later he sent another message: “Inside.”

Caldwell received a Facebook message saying “all members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in,” authorities said. “Turn on gas,” the message said.

Hours after the siege, Caldwell was already talking about another attack “at the local level,” authorities say.

“If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians. They ran off and were spirited away through their underground tunnels like the rats they were,” Caldwell said in a message to a friend.

___

The Proud Boys met at the Washington Monument and were already at the Capitol before Trump finished addressing thousands of supporters near the White House. Listening to the president’s speech wasn’t part of their plan, prosecutors say.

Nordean led the way with a bullhorn while they wore headgear marked with orange tape. Pezzola appeared to have an earpiece in his right ear. Biggs had what looked like a walkie-talkie device on his chest.

Nordean was spotted having a brief exchange near the Capitol with Robert Gieswein, a bat-wielding Colorado man. Proud Boys planning for Jan. 6 had discussed using non-members, or “normies,” like Gieswein to “burn that city to ash” and “smash some pigs to dust,” prosecutors said.

The Proud Boys arrived at the east side of the Capitol before noon. Nordean allegedly positioned them at a Capitol grounds pedestrian entrance guarded by a handful of police officers behind a movable metal barrier.

Around 12:50 p.m., just before the joint session of Congress was scheduled to start, a crowd including Proud Boys members broke through a front line of Capitol police officers and past sets of metal barriers. Nordean moved to the front of the crowd and “stalked” the line of officers to intimidate them and rile up the crowd, prosecutors wrote.

As the mob advanced to another line of officers in the Capitol’s west plaza, Chrestman faced them and shouted, “Do you want your house back?”

“Yes!” the crowd replied.

“Take it!” Chrestman yelled.

Gieswein and Pezzola were among the first to enter the Capitol, through a window Pezzola shattered with a riot shield that he snatched from police, prosecutors say. It took Pezzola more than an hour to fight his way from the exterior of the Capitol grounds to the building’s interior, they say.

Inside, Pezzola joined others in confronting Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who led the mob away from an entrance to the Senate chamber. Pezzola later took a video of himself smoking a cigar.

“Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys,” he said.

___

Nine people linked to the Oath Keepers have been indicted on charges that they planned and coordinated with one another in the siege. At least 11 leaders, members or associates of the Proud Boys charged in the riots are accused by the Justice Department of participating in a coordinated attack.

Several from both groups remain in federal custody while awaiting trial.

Their defense attorneys say prosecutors have painted a misleading account of the day’s events based on shaky evidence. Other lawyers for those charged with storming the Capitol have tried to pin the blame on Trump for inciting the rioters.

Nordean’s lawyers said prosecutors haven’t presented any evidence that he used encrypted communications to lead a group’s attack on the Capitol. While the government said investigators found a Baofeng radio in Nordean’s home, his lawyers said he did not obtain it until after the day after the riot.

“The government has made repeated claims about Ethan’s activities and then backed away from them without providing any support,” said one of his attorneys, Nicholas Smith.

Caldwell’s lawyer has accused prosecutors of twisting social media posts and messages to make fantastic claims with no hard evidence that any person or group had a premeditated plan to storm the Capitol. David Fischer described Caldwell as a Hollywood-addicted amateur screenwriter full of bravado. The prosecutors’ case is heavy on “dramatic language” but “light on specifics,” the lawyer said in a recent court filing.

“What time was the ‘invasion’ scheduled to begin? Who would lead the attack? What was the goal once the planners entered the Capitol? Who was the leader in the attack? What was the exit strategy of the planners?” Fischer wrote.

Fischer said prosecutors’ case crumbles when closely examined. The “quick reaction force” prosecutors have alleged the Oath Keepers were planning, for example, was actually one person — an obese man in his late 60s with a bad back — who planned to come to their aid if they were attacked by left-wing protesters, Fischer said.

During a hearing last month in which a judge ordered him to remain behind bars while he awaits trial, Caldwell exclaimed that his messages were being “taken out of context.”

“These Oath Keepers thought they — ” he said, before the audio was disconnected and the judge cut in to warn him that anything he said could be used against him by prosecutors.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — These suspects weren’t exactly in hiding.

“THIS IS ME,” one man posted on Instagram with a hand emoji pointing to himself in a picture of the violent mob descending on the U.S. Capitol. “Sooo we’ve stormed Capitol Hill lol,” one woman texted someone while inside the building. “I just wanted to incriminate myself a little lol,” another wrote on Facebook about a selfie he took inside during the Jan. 6 riot.

In dozens of cases, supporters of President Donald Trump downright flaunted their activity on social media on the day of the deadly insurrection. Some, apparently realizing they were in trouble with the law, deleted their accounts only to discover their friends and family members had already taken screenshots of their selfies, videos and comments and sent them to the FBI.

Their total lack of concern over getting caught and their friends’ willingness to turn them in has helped authorities charge about 150 people as of Monday with federal crimes. But even with the help from the rioters themselves, investigators must still work rigorously to link the images to the vandalism and suspects to the acts on Jan. 6 in order to prove their case in court. And because so few were arrested at the scene, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service have been forced to send agents to track suspects down.

“Some of you have recognized that this was such an egregious incident that you’ve turned in your own friends and family members,” Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington office, said of the tipsters Tuesday. “We know that those decisions are often painful, but you picked up the phone because it’s the right thing to do.”

In the last few weeks, the FBI has received more than 200,000 photos and video tips related to the riot. Investigators have put up billboards in several states with photos of wanted rioters. Working on tips from co-workers, acquaintances and friends, agents have tracked down driver’s license photos to match their faces with those captured on camera in the building. In some cases, authorities got records from Facebook or Twitter to connect their social media accounts to their email addresses or phone numbers. In others, agents used records from license plate readers to confirm their travels.

More than 800 are believed to have made their way into the Capitol, although it’s likely not everyone will be tracked down and charged with a crime. Federal prosecutors are focusing on the most critical cases and the most egregious examples of wrongdoing. And they must weigh manpower, cost and evidence when charging rioters.

A special group of prosecutors is examining whether to bring sedition charges against the rioters, which carry up to 20 years in prison. One trio was charged with conspiracy; most have been charged with crimes like unlawful entry and disorderly conduct.

Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said prosecutors were “closely looking at evidence related to the sedition charges” and he believed “the results will bear fruit very soon.”

Many rioters posted selfies inside the Capitol to their social media accounts, gave interviews to news outlets describing their experience and readily admitted when questioned by federal investigators that they were there. One man created a Facebook album titled “Who’s House? OUR HOUSE” filled with photos of himself and others on Capitol grounds, officials said.

“They might have thought, like so many people that work with Trump, that if the president tells me to do it, it’s not breaking the law,” said Michael Gerhardt, an expert on impeachment and professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Others made blunders, like a Houston police officer, who denied he went into the Capitol, then agreed to let agents look at the pictures on his phone. Inside his deleted photos folder were pictures and videos, including selfies he took inside the building, authorities said. Another man was wearing a court-ordered GPS monitor after a burglary conviction that tracked his every movement inside the building.

A retired firefighter from Long Island, New York, texted a video of himself in the Capitol rotunda to his girlfriend’s brother, saying he was “at the tip of the spear,” officials said. The brother happened to be a federal agent with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, who turned the video over to the FBI. A lawyer for the man, Thomas Fee, said that he “was not part of any attempt to take over the U.S. Capitol” and that “the allegation is that he merely walked through an open door into the Capitol — nothing more.”

Another man who was inside the Capitol was willing to rat out another rioter who stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern and emailed the video to an FBI agent, even signing his own name to it. “Hello Nice FBI Lady,” he wrote, “Here are the links to the videos. Looks like Podium Guy is in one of them, less the podium. Let me know if you need anything else.”

In another case, a man was on a flight leaving D.C. two days after the riot when he kept shouting “Trump 2020!” and was kicked off. An airport police officer saw the man get off the plane and the man was booked on another flight. Forty-five minutes later, the officer was watching a video on Instagram and recognized the man in a group of rioters. The man, who was wearing the same shirt as the day he stormed the Capitol, was arrested at the airport, authorities said.

Even defense attorneys have acknowledged that the evidence poses a problem for them.

“I’m not a magician,” said an attorney for the man seen in a photo carrying Pelosi’s lectern. “We’ve got a photograph of our client in what appears to be inside a federal building or inside the Capitol with government property.”

Police at the Capitol planned only for a free-speech demonstration and were overwhelmed by the mob that broke through and roamed the halls of the Capitol for hours as lawmakers were sent into hiding. Five people died in the melee, including a Capitol police officer who was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher.

Trump was impeached after the riot on a charge of “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” Opening arguments will begin the week of Feb. 8. He is the first president to be twice impeached and the first to face a trial after leaving office.

Unlike criminal cases, impeachment trials do not have specific evidence rules so anything said and done that day can be used. And several of the people charged have said in interviews with reporters or federal agents that they were simply listening to the president when they marched to the Capitol.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday explicitly blamed President Donald Trump for the deadly riot at the Capitol, saying the mob was “fed lies” and that the president and others “provoked” those intent on overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s election.

Ahead of Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, McConnell’s remarks were his most severe and public rebuke of the outgoing president. The GOP leader is setting a tone as Republicans weigh whether to convict Trump on the impeachment charge that will soon be sent over from the House: “incitement of insurrection.”

“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”

The Republican leader vowed a “safe and successful” inauguration of Biden on Wednesday at the Capitol, where final preparations were underway amid heavy security.

Trump’s last full day in office Tuesday was also senators’ first day back since the deadly Capitol siege and since the House voted to impeach him for his role in the riots — an unparalleled time of transition as the Senate prepares for the second impeachment trial in two years and presses ahead with the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet.

Three new Democratic senators-elect are set to be sworn into office Wednesday shortly after Biden’s inauguration, giving the Democrats the barest majority, a 50-50 Senate chamber. The new vice president, Kamala Harris, will swear them in and serve as an eventual tie-breaking vote.

The Democrats, led by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, will take charge of the Senate as they launch a trial to hold the defeated president responsible for the siege, while also quickly confirming Biden’s Cabinet and being asked to consider passage of a sweeping new $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

“The inauguration of a new president and the start of a new administration always brings a flurry of activity to our nation’s government,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday morning. “But rarely has so much piled up for the Senate as during this particular transition.”

Making the case for Trump’s conviction, Schumer said the Senate needs to set a precedent that the “severest offense ever committed by a president would be met by the severest remedy provided by the Constitution — impeachment,” and disbarment from future office.

McConnell and Schumer conferred later Tuesday about how to balance the trial with other business and how to organize the evenly divided chamber, a process that could slow all of the Senate’s business and delay the impeachment proceedings.

There were signs of an early impasse. McConnell expressed to Schumer “his long-held view that the crucial, longstanding, and bipartisan Senate rules concerning the legislative filibuster remain intact, specifically during the power share for the next two years,” according to spokesman Doug Andres. Eliminating the Senate filibuster, a procedural move that requires a higher bar for legislation to pass, has been a priority for Democrats who will now control the House, Senate and White House.

But a spokesman for Schumer, Justin Goodman, said the Democratic leader “expressed that the fairest, most reasonable and easiest path forward” was to adopt an agreement similar to a 2001 consensus between the parties, the last time the Senate was evenly divided, without “extraneous changes from either side.”

Five of Biden’s nominees had committee hearings Tuesday as the Senate prepared for swift confirmation of some as soon as the president-elect takes office, as is often done particularly for the White House’s national security team. Many noted the harrowing events at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, testified of her own “eerie” feeling coming to the Capitol complex after “how truly disturbing it was” to see the attack on the building unfold. Biden’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, vowed to get to the bottom of the “horrifying” siege.

The start of the new session of Congress was also forcing lawmakers to come to terms with the post-Trump era, a transfer of power that Trump’s mob of supporters tried to prevent after he urged them to storm the Capitol as Congress was tallying the Electoral College vote confirming Biden’s election.

Seven Republican senators led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tried to overturn Biden’s election during the Electoral College tally. Cruz was presiding over the Senate Tuesday while McConnell delivered his blistering remarks.

Hawley continued to embrace his role in the opposition, saying on Tuesday that he will block a quick confirmation of Mayorkas, the Homeland Security nominee, to protest Biden’s immigration plan to provide a path to citizenship for 11 million people. Hawley said Mayorkas “has not adequately explained how he will enforce federal law and secure the southern border.”

As they begin the year newly in the minority, Republican senators face a daunting choice of whether to convict Trump of inciting the insurrection, the first impeachment trial of a president no longer in office — but one who continues to hold great sway over the party’s voters.

Some Republicans want to halt the impeachment trial. Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn was among those Republicans casting doubt on the legal ability of the Senate to convict a president no longer in office, though legal scholars differ on the issue.

“It’s never happened before and maybe that’s for a good reason,” he said.

The House impeached Trump last week on the sole charge, incitement of insurrection, making him the only president to be twice impeached. A protester died during the riot and a police officer died later of injuries; three other people involved died of medical emergencies. He was first impeached in 2019 over relations with Ukraine and was acquitted in 2020 by the Senate.

The three new Democratic senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and Alex Padilla of California, are to be sworn into office Wednesday, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss planning.

Warnock and Ossoff defeated Republican incumbents in this month’s runoff elections. Georgia’s secretary of state certified the election results Tuesday. Padilla was tapped by California’s governor to fill the remainder of Harris’ Senate term.

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