Study looks into why Jan 6 US rioters stormed the capitol

Harvard University researchers say that most of the people who attacked the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, and have been charged in the riot were motivated to do so either by their support for Trump or his false belief that the election had been stolen.

The third most frequently cited reason from defendants was a belief that they were taking part in "revolution, civil war or secession", said the report, the largest study yet of what motivated the rioters. It was shared with NBC News on July 20 ahead of its publication.

Researchers at Harvard's Shorstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy manually went through 469 pages of federal court documents to reach their conclusion. They analyzed the motives of 417 Capitol rioters charged in the attack.

The report's findings were shared with NBC News on July 20 ahead of its release. According to NBC News' breakdown of the report, "A plurality of rioters cited either their support for Trump (20.6 percent) or Trump's false belief that the election had been stolen (also 20.6 percent) as their primary motivation for their actions that led to charges on Jan 6."

At least 884 people have been arrested and charged with crimes for the attack on the Capitol.

President Donald Trump didn't want to call for the prosecution of the rioters after the attack, according to a copy of a draft of his remarks with his handwritten notes released Monday in a video by the House Select committee investigating the assault. When asked about the document, Ivanka Trump told committee investigators it appeared to be a copy of draft remarks for Trump to deliver the day after the attack on the Capitol. She identified edits as written in her father's handwriting.

The draft showed that Trump removed a line directing the Justice Department to prosecute rioters from a speech he delivered the day after the attack on the Capitol.

The draft remarks included a line that Trump crossed out in black marker: "I am directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We must send a clear message — not with mercy, but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm."

The paragraph follows with the line "I want to be very clear you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement" also crossed out. Trump edited a third sentence, which initially read "And if you broke the law, you belong in jail" to instead say "And if you broke the law, you will pay."

Only 329 of the federally charged rioters have entered guilty pleas so far. Roughly 165 of the 800-plus cases have been fully adjudicated, with a total of 65 defendants receiving sentences to either jail or prison terms. Another 50 have been sentenced to home detention.

Mark Ponder, 56, from Washington, DC, who attacked police officers with poles during the riot, was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five years in prison, matching the longest term of imprisonment so far among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions.

That was three months longer than the prison sentence requested by prosecutors. It is the same sentence that the judge gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police at the Capitol.

None of those charged in the riot have received a longer prison sentence than Ponder or Palmer.

According to Justice Department officials, more than 140 federal prosecutors have been working on cases related to the Jan 6 attack in conjunction with FBI agents from all 50 states for over a year and a half since the mob stormed the Capitol in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.