Category: Federal Bureau of Investigation

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A man who was accused of discharging bear spray at law enforcement officers during the Capitol riot was arrested by the FBI after he enlisted in the Air Force

U.S. Capitol Police officers push back rioters who were trying to break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
U.S. Capitol Police officers push back rioters who were trying to break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File

  • Aiden Henry Bilyard, 19, was arrested Monday in connection to the Capitol insurrection.
  • On January 6, Bilyard is accused of using bear spray on police officers and breaking a window at the Capitol.
  • Bilyard enlisted in the Air Force and was interviewed by FBI agents in August at a base in Texas.

Aiden Henry Bilyard, 19, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday on multiple charges in connection with the Capitol insurrection.

Bilyard, a resident of Cary, North Carolina, made his initial appearance in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina later that same day, according to the Department of Justice.

Bilyard was arrested on multiple criminal charges, including aiding and abetting civil disorder, destruction of government property, and assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous weapon, according to a criminal complaint.

Dubbed by investigators as #HarvardSweats due to the sweatshirt he wore on January 6, Bilyard was among accused rioters in the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol when he discharged a chemical irritant believed to have been “bear spray” to incapacitate law enforcement officers, court documents showed.

Video footage also captured Bilyard encouraging another accused rioter, Mitchell Todd Garner II, to break a large glass window of the Capitol building with an axe. After, Bilyard used a canister and a baseball bat to shatter the lower portion of the glass window, he turned around to clap and shout, encouraging people to begin entering the building through the window, which led to the Senate terrace, per the DOJ.

Bilyard was interviewed by an FBI task force officer on August 4 at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, where he was attending basic training, according to court documents. During the interview, he admitted that he was present at the Capitol on January 6 but only participated in lawful activities.

When shown video evidence displaying his participation in criminal acts, Bilyard ended the interview, saying, “I think this is where I take my leave,” citing court documents. 

He later separated from the Air Force and moved back to Cary, North Carolina.

The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting Bilyard’s case.

He is among more than 675 individuals who have been arrested for crimes related to the Capitol insurrection in the ten months since January 6, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

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Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn calls for one religion in America

Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, speaks to attendees as he endorses New York City mayoral candidate Fernando Mateo during a campaign event on Thursday, June 3, 2021, in Staten Island, N.Y.
Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, speaks to attendees as he endorses New York City mayoral candidate Fernando Mateo during a campaign event on Thursday, June 3, 2021, in Staten Island, N.Y.

AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez

  • Michael Flynn recently spoke about his Christian faith to refute QAnon claims that he worships Satan.
  • Flynn spoke at the “ReAwaken America” tour, which featured other Trump loyalists and anti-vaxxers.
  • Roger Stone, Mike Lindell, and Lin Wood are all participating as speakers on the tour.

At a three-day conference in San Antonio, Texas, for the “ReAwaken America” tour, former national security adviser and keynote speaker Michael Flynn called for Christianity to become the singular religion of the United States.

“If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God,” said Flynn, who recently talked about his Christian faith in an effort to refute QAnon claims that he worships Satan.

At the conference, Flynn also discussed former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was indicted by a federal grand jury for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. Flynn called the indictment an “abuse of freedom of speech.”

Flynn also said he has taped a segment for “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on what he calls the “insurrection crucifixion,” comparing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Pontius Pilate, the man who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus in the Bible.

“This is the crucifixion of our First Amendment freedom to speak, freedom to peacefully assemble. It’s unbelievable,” Flynn said at the conference on Friday.

The “ReAwaken America” tour features Flynn, other Trump loyalists, and anti-vaxx doctors, including Stella Immanuel and Scott Jensen, who have a history of spreading disinformation about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other Trump allies participating as speakers for the tour include Roger Stone, Mike Lindell, and Lin Wood.

Flynn also has a history of propagating conspiracy theories, such as COVID-19 vaccines being added to salad dressing, and previously claimed that COVID-19 was fabricated to distract from the 2020 election.

He served as the Trump administration’s national security adviser and was pardoned in 2020 after pleading guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his communications with Russia.

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The FBI recovered a huge chunk of the Colonial Pipeline ransom by secretly gaining access to Darkside’s bitcoin wallet password

The bitcoin logo is seen on a smartphone screen device in front of a computer screen that says "cancelled. "
The FBI managed to gain access to the “private key” of a bitcoin wallet that the hacking group Darkside used to collect its ransom payments.

Budrul Chukrut/Getty Images

The Department of Justice announced Monday that it had recovered a majority of the ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline to hackers who shut down its operations last month and caused massive fuel shortages and price hikes.

The DOJ said that it had recovered $2.3 million worth of bitcoin out of the $4.4 million ransom that Colonial had paid to Darkside, the group behind the hack.

How did the government pull it off?

The FBI had what was effectively the password to a bitcoin wallet that Darkside had sent the ransom money to, allowing the FBI to simply seize the funds, according to the DOJ.

‘Following the money’

Despite cybercriminals’ increasingly sophisticated use of technology to commit crimes, the DOJ said it used a time-tested approach to recover Colonial’s ransom payment.

“Following the money remains one of the most basic, yet powerful tools we have,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the DOJ’s press release.

Colonial was hacked by Darkside on May 7, and alerted the FBI that same day, according to the DOJ.

On May 8, with its operations knocked offline and amid an emerging gas crisis, Colonial opted to pay the ransom (much to the chagrin of government crimefighters who were simultaneously trying to shut down the hack).

Colonial told the FBI that Darkside had instructed it to send 75 bitcoin, worth about $4.3 million at the time, according to an affadavit from an FBI special agent involved in the investigation.

The FBI agent then used a blockchain explorer – software that lets users search a blockchain, like bitcoin, to determine the amount and destination of transactions – to figure out that Darkside had tried to launder the money through various bitcoin addresses (similar to bank accounts), according to the affadavit.

Eventually, through the blockchain explorer, the FBI agent was able to track 63.7 bitcoin to a single address that had received an influx of payments on May 27.

Fortunately for the FBI, according to the agent’s affadavit, the agency had the private key (effectively the password) for that very address.

Bitcoin addresses rely on a two-key encryption system to keep transactions secure: one public and one private. The public key is shared openly so anybody can send money to that address. But once the sender has encrypted their payment with the recipient’s public key, only the recipient’s private key can decrypt and gain access to that money.

That’s why private keys are meant to be closely held secrets, stored in a secure place. As of January, $140 billion in bitcoin – around 20% of existing bitcoin – were held in wallets where people had forgotten or lost their private keys.

In Darkside’s case, the FBI managed to gain access to its public key, and after getting a seizure warrant from a federal court, the agency used the key to access Darkside’s address and swipe 63.7 bitcoin, or around $2.3 million.

The FBI didn’t say how it had managed to obtain the key, but said it sent a warning to other potential ransomware hackers.

“Ransom payments are the fuel that propels the digital extortion engine, and today’s announcement demonstrates that the United States will use all available tools to make these attacks more costly and less profitable for criminal enterprises,” Monaco said in the release.

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FBI pinpoints a single suspect in the death of US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick

brian sicknick capitol police
A U.S. Capitol Police officer stands at the door of the Capitol Rotunda near where the late U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick will lie in honor Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021, in Washington.

Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via AP, Pool

  • Federal investigators have a suspect in the killing of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
  • The probe was narrowed after video footage showed the suspect attacking officers with bear spray.
  • The assailant has not yet been publicly named by federal investigators.
  • Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

The FBI has narrowed in on a suspect in the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, The New York Times reported Friday.

Sicknick was among the Capitol Police officers who defended the US Capitol against a pro-Trump mob on January 6. He succumbed to injuries sustained during the riot a day later, on January 7.

Officials initially said Sicknick was struck by a fire extinguisher, but later said there was no evidence to suggest that he died from blunt force trauma. Federal investigators then launched a probe to look into whether bear spray – a  chemical irritant used by rioters during the insurrection – could instead have played a role in Sicknick’s death.

After questioning dozens of people, investigators zeroed in on a single suspect after a video showed the individual using bear spray on other officers, law enforcement officials told The Times. Another video also showed the suspect discussing plans to assault officers with bear spray, according to one of the officials.

The assailant has not yet been publicly named by federal investigators.

Christina Laury, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, had previously mentioned that rioters sprayed chemical irritants at officers who were preventing them from entering the Capitol.

“By the time I got there, officers were already getting, you know, sprayed with whatever these individuals had, which I believe they had bear mace, which is literally used for bears,” Laury told WJLA.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told reporters earlier this month that Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman told him that he “had to breathe a lot of bear spray and tear gas and that he was nauseated” during the insurrection.

Goodman recently received a Congressional Gold Medal for his role in diverting a mob of rioters away from the Senate chamber where lawmakers were taking refuge. He also led Romney away from the crowd that breached the Capitol as he passed him in the hall.

Sicknick was one of three officers who died following the Capitol riots – two other officers died by suicide.

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