Makeshift napalm

More arrests.

On Friday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced charges against a man accused of bringing guns and molotov cocktails to Washington. Another was reported to have had an assault rifle and ammunition and told friends he planned to shoot Pelosi, the House speaker, or run her over.

In a Saturday lunchtime statement, the US attorney’s office for District of Columbia announced the arrest and charging of three suspects, among them Jacob Anthony Chansley of Arizona, who also goes by the name of Jake Angeli and who was photographed in horned headwear and dressed in fur pelts, in Vice-President Mike Pence’s seat in the Senate chamber.

The 33-year-old self-styled “QAnon shaman”, “entered the Capitol building dressed in horns, a bearskin headdress, red, white and blue face paint, shirtless, and tan pants”, the statement said.

“This individual carried a spear, approximately 6ft in length, with an American flag tied just below the blade,” the attorney’s office said, adding that he was taken into custody on Saturday and charged with “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds”.

Aw, he was just there to have fun. Wasn’t he?

The man seen carrying the speaker’s lectern, Adam Christian Johnson, 36, was booked into Florida’s Pinellas county jail on Friday night on a federal warrant.

On Saturday he was charged with “entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; one count of theft of government property; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds”, prosecutors said. Johnson is expected to be extradited to the capital for a court appearance this week.

Johnson, the US attorney’s office said, “illegally entered the United States Capitol and removed the Speaker of the House’s lectern from where it had been stored on the House side of the Capitol building. A search of open sources led law enforcement to Johnson, who is allegedly seen in a widely circulated photo inside the Capitol carrying the lectern.”

The lectern is still missing.

On Friday the DoJ said one Capitol attacker, Lonnie Leroy Coffman, 70 and from Alabama, was alleged to have had in his vehicle “one black handgun, one M4 Carbine assault rifle along with rifle magazines loaded with ammunition, and components for the construction of 11 ‘Molotov cocktails’ in the form of mason jars filled with ignitable substances, rags, and lighters”.

A statement said: “Coffman was [also] found to have on his person a 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun [and] a 22-caliber derringer style handgun.

“… Coffman told officers that the mason jars contained melted Styrofoam and gasoline. [The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] advised that the combination of melted Styrofoam and gasoline is an explosive mixture that has the effect of napalm because, when detonated, the substance causes the flammable liquid to better stick to objects that it hits.”

Oh that’s nice. He was hoping to do that to people.

Citing court documents, CNN reported that another attacker, Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr, was alleged to have sent texts in which he said he had “a shit ton of … armour-piercing ammo” and wanted to “[put] a bullet in [Pelosi’s] noggin on Live TV”. He also reportedly said he had considered running Pelosi over.

FBI agents who searched Meredith’s truck and trailer reportedly found a Glock 19, a 9mm pistol and an assault rifle and “approximately hundreds of rounds of ammunition”.

How democracies die.

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