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The arrest of Mr. Sanford had nothing to do with the death of a Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, who was reportedly hit in the head by a fire extinguisher, according to two police officers.

Later that day, the charges against a man accused of beating a police officer on the Capitol grounds with an American flagpole were overturned. According to a criminal complaint, the man, Peter Stager, alleged that the victim of the attack was a member of Antifa, the loose collective of left-wing activists who have often grappled with far-right demonstrators, even though the words “Metropolitan Police” were clearly written on the officer’s uniform.

“Everyone there is a traitorous traitor,” Stager said in an apparent reference to the Capitol, according to a video obtained from the FBI. “Death is the only remedy against what is in this building.”

Even as they pursued new leads and suspects, federal investigators tried to investigate a fire charge brought up by several lawmakers this week: some members of Congress helped coordinate the attack.

On Wednesday, Representative Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat and former naval pilot, and more than 30 of her colleagues called for an investigation into what they called “suspicious” visits by outside groups to the Capitol the day before the riot at a time when most Tours were restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, another lawmaker, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said she witnessed a tour of the building in person by “Trump supporters” prior to the January 6 attack.

A police officer said investigators had not yet found evidence that members of Congress were involved in planning the attack and warned that the investigation was extensive and that any evidence would need to be carefully checked.

The spate of arrests and investigations added an air of nervous activity to a city that appeared to be under siege. The National Mall area was overcrowded with military vehicles on Thursday and cut off from the surrounding area by metal fences. This created what the secret service agent responsible for opening security called a “safe bubble”.

In a video posted on Twitter on Sunday that quickly drew millions of visitors, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film star and former governor of California, compared the uprising at the Capitol last week to Kristallnacht, a rampage in Germany in 1938, during which of Nazi-inspired mobs burned synagogues and destroyed Jewish shops.

Mr. Schwarzenegger sat at a desk and was flanked by the American and California flags. He combined his experiences, which he had gained in Austria after the Second World War, with what he experienced in the USA.

“Being from Europe, I’ve seen firsthand how things can get out of hand,” he said, adding that while others may fear something similar could happen in the US, he doesn’t believe it is possible held.

“I think we need to be aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism,” he warned.

Mr. Schwarzenegger remembered growing up surrounded by men who had “drunk off their guilt for participating in the most evil regime in history.” His father, like others in the neighborhood, would return home drunk once or twice a week and “he screamed and hit us and scared my mother,” he said.

The painful memory, he said, was one he hadn’t shared so publicly before, but he chose it to underscore the “emotional pain” these men were experiencing from what they saw or did.

“My father and our neighbors were also misled with lies,” he said. “And I know where such lies lead.”

Mr Schwarzenegger linked the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol with Kristallnacht and described the attacks against Jews more than 80 years ago carried out by “the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys.”

Within a few hours, the 7-minute video attracted nearly 10 million views on Twitter.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has long been critical of President Trump, described him in the video as a “failed leader” and “the worst president ever”. Mr. Schwarzenegger noticed former President John F. Kennedy’s book entitled “Profiles in Courage” and added that some Republicans would never see their names in such a book because he called “their own spinelessness”.

“We have to hold the people accountable who brought us to this unforgivable point,” he said.

In a call for bipartisanship, Mr. Schwarzenegger underscored the need for the nation to heal. Referring to his 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, he took a sword off his desk and said, “This is the Conan sword.” A sword is tempered and strengthened by striking it with a hammer and then heating it is cooled, he said.

“Our democracy is like the steel of this sword,” said Schwarzenegger. “The more it is tempered, the stronger it gets.”