In an alarming assessment of last week’s Capitol rampage, federal prosecutors said that rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials,” according to a memo filed in court.
The 18-page document was submitted Thursday as part of the federal criminal case against Jacob Anthony Chansley, who goes by the name Jake Angeli and is a well-known conspiracy theorist known as the “Q Shaman.”
Mr. Chansley, a fixture of the QAnon conspiracy movement, has become among the most conspicuous figures of the Capitol riot. He was photographed in the building bare-chested, with his face painted red, white and blue, and wearing a fur headdress with horns, holding an American-flag draped spear.
Prosecutors said Mr. Chansley approached a Capitol Police officer and screamed that members of the mob “were there to take the Capitol and to get congressional leaders.” In the Senate chamber, he ran up to the dais where Vice President Mike Pence had been presiding just minutes before and began posing for other rioters to photograph.
He wrote a note for Mr. Pence, reading, “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
The next day, Mr. Chansley called the F.B.I. and confessed to his actions, admitting that he was able to enter the Senate “by the grace of God.” Prosecutors are arguing for Mr. Chansley to be detained until his trial begins, noting that he wants to return to Washington for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration.
“I’ll still go, you better believe it,” he told the F.B.I.
In Texas, a federal prosecutor said another rioter, Lt. Col. Rendall Brock Jr., planned to take hostages with zip-tie handcuffs when he stormed the Capitol last week and pointed to an array of violent online threats that Mr. Brock made in the run-up to the mob attack.
Mr. Brock, a former Air Force officer with multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, was photographed in the mayhem carrying handcuffs and wearing gear emblazoned with the insignia of the 706th Fighter Squadron, in which he once served.
He was arrested on Sunday in Texas after his ex-wife contacted the F.B.I. after she recognized him in a photograph. He has been charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.