On the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, conservatives held more than two dozen "Justice for J6" vigils across the country, arguing that most of those arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol "were political neophytes" who hadn't realized what they were doing was wrong. In February, the Republican Party described the insurrection as "legitimate political discourse" in censuring the two GOP members of Congress who joined the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 events. And in early April, Donald Trump told the Washington Post that he had wanted to march to the Capitol himself, saying, "I would have gone there in a minute" if the Secret Service hadn't prevented it.
All this is part of a growing effort to normalize the riot at the Capitol, and to cast its perpetrators as overwhelmingly "ordinary people" who got caught up in the momentum of something beyond their control. But last week came decisive evidence that this simply isn't true: At least a third of those arrested in conjunction with Jan. 6 belong to a far-right network that is not just deeply interconnected but resilient and adaptable.
