DOJ IG: Dozens of FBI Confidential Sources at Capitol on January 6
These CHSs gathered information before January 6th and guess what. The FBI didn’t do much. I bet you know what I want to ask the FBI.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation of the Capitol Hill Riot found no undercover FBI agents attended. Still, over two dozen confidential human sources (DHS) were at the event.
However, the FBI only assigned three of the sources to attend on January 6:
- One FBI field office tasked a CHS to travel to DC to report on the activities of a predicated domestic terrorism subject who was separately planning to travel to DC for the January 6 Electoral Certification
- Second FBI field office tasked a CHS to travel to DC to potentially report on two domestic terrorism (DT) subjects from another FBI field office who were planning to travel to DC for the events of January 6
- Third CHS, who had informed their handling agent that they intended to travel to DC on their own initiative for the events of January 6, was similarly tasked by their field office to potentially report on two DT subjects from other FBI field offices who were planning to travel to DC for the events of January 6.
The IG could not find evidence that the FBI authorized the CHSs to “enter the Capitol or restricted area, or to otherwise break the law.” The materials also did not show that the FBI had told them “to encourage others to commit illegal acts.”
The three CHSs found 23 other CHSs in DC “in connection with the events planned for January 6.”
The IG also did not find evidence that the FBI told them to break the law, enter the Hill or restricted areas, or push others to break the law.
But the IG discovered:
- Four entered the Capitol during the riot
- 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol
- Nine did not enter the Capitol or restricted areas or committed illegal activities
- None of them have been prosecuted
Many of the 26 CHSs handed over information about the electoral certification before January 6. Several of the CHSs gave information after January 6.
The FBI even received information from CHSs who did not attend the riot. A few examples:
- a CHS was in contact with leadership for the Oath Keepers
- “extremist members of [the] Oath Keepers or other groups may become involved in unplanned violent activity on January 6”
- the Oath Keepers “contingent headed to DC is 200+ strong;
- the travel plans being discussed by the Proud Boys
- an individual purporting to be the leader of a group that had “500 people willing to storm the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on January 6th
- a CHS indicated they had concerns for the safety of Members of Congress on January 6.
“None of this reporting concerned specific plans to attack the Capitol building in connection with the January 6 proceedings,” wrote the IG. “However, it is intelligence information that, if properly shared or acted upon, would have provided WFO [FBI Washington Field Office] with additional information in advance of the January 6 Electoral Certification.”
For example, on January 4, 2021, a CHS in Field Office 2 told the handling agent that a person “on a communications platform claimed to be the leader” of the Oath Leaders said they “had 500 people willing to storm the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.”
The next day, the same CHS told the handling agent “that 10 militia members from various militias had announced in a group chat on the communications platform that they would be participating in protests in DC starting January 5, 2021, through the Inauguration.”
Field Office 2 did not send anyone to Capitol Hill.
That is only one example.
Therefore, the IG concluded the FBI did not do enough despite CHSs from different field offices alerting their handling agents of plans to storm the Capitol:
We also found that DTOS [Domestic Terrorism Operations Section] did not issue an informal canvass to all FBI field offices requesting information from all sources, including CHSs, about threats in connection with the January 6 Electoral Certification. We determined that the DTOS Program Manager’s December 30 email was not an affirmative canvass or data call for information and was not a direction to the field offices to seek information from their CHSs. The testimony of the Program Manager and of the WFO CTD [Counterterrorism Division] SSA [Supervisory Special Agent] who served as supervisor to WFO’s DT squad about the reason for that email (i.e., to improve any reporting that field offices may want to send), and the plain language of the email show that the Program Manager’s December 30 email was not intended to direct the field to canvass its CHSs. As indicated in the subject line in the original emails between the two, the December 30 email was about “[I]mproving threat reporting” that field offices were sending on their own initiative, and the email itself includes no request or requirement to canvass CHSs for information. While some field offices read the email more broadly, that is not what generally occurred.
“Indeed, we believe the post-January 6 emphasis that the FBI placed on having done a pre-January 6 CHS canvass, when in fact it had not, reinforces our concerns about the importance of the FBI ensuring that, in connection with future major events, it assesses whether a canvass is necessary and appropriate under FBI policy,” concluded the IG.
Jonathan Turley brings up a great point. Did the defense of those prosecuted over J6 know about all of the CHSs?
The new IG report on January 6th may raise more questions than answers. It confirms that confidential sources did indeed enter the Capitol and restricted areas. The question is whether the presence of these sources were revealed to the defense in the hundreds of prosecutions…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 12, 2024
…Moreover, there is a question of why the three sources who entered the Capitol were not charged as part of an operation that the Justice Department described as an effort to “shock and awe” targeting everyone involved on that day…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 12, 2024
…The IG found that most of these individuals were there without any instructions or requests from the government. However, as paid sources for the FBI, the question is what they did on that day…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 12, 2024
…The IG suggests that they were not engaged in the core criminal conduct prosecuted on that day. Yet, if revealed to the defense, including hundreds who pleaded guilty, defense counsel would not just take the government’s word for what these sources did on that day…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 12, 2024
…Given the many hearings and inquiries from Congress, it is likely that House committees will have additional questions on what is known about the role or conduct of these sources.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 12, 2024
…In the end, this report does not find specific wrongdoing or direction from sources in the rioting on January 6th. It also does not find that any undercover agents were working in the crowd. That will bolster testimony given by Wray. The Congress however is likely to seek…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 12, 2024
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Comments
Bastards. The FBI must be completely dismantled and reconstituted afresh.
I, personally, would like to see Liz Cheney and the rest of the January 6 committee investigated for subversion of justice.
No need to reconstitute. Raze the building, salt the earth.
Arrest these “Bastards” and convict them and their handlers, SSAs, and anyone else involved. Put them in prison at Guantanamo Bay and throw away the key.
The DOJ IG report is just scratching the surface.
If this is what the FBI is publicly willing to admit to, it is much worse. Forget pardons, each and every conviction needs to be thrown out.
News this morning is that Joe just issued between 1,000 and 1,500 pardons and commutations. I’m sure there’s still plenty of room in the pool.
Of course, none of them were conservatives. Just Democrat criminals, but that is redundant.
I meant for the FBI CHSs, of course!
I agree with you. I was merely pointing out that those pardoned were not conservatives. I also agree that there is plenty more that will be pardoned.
But J6 political prisoners will not be allowed
This is a good precedent for Trump, who (I hope) will pardon the people who didn’t do anything on Jan 6 and commute those who actually busted up the place and were given decades-long sentences. The DOJ persecuted the Jan 6 rioters for illegal entry, while giving nearly all the BLM and Antifa rioters a free pass for vandalism, arson and murder.
To separate the sheep from the goats in J6 would take tens of thousands of hours of DOJ and private attorney time, and well over a year or two. The corrupt DOJ doing Garland’s bidding mixed real violent crimes such as assault in with “touched a gate that wound up touching an officer” or even “Allowing self to be beaten by officer while protecting a downed person.” This Gordian knot they tied is best treated by Blackstone’s Ratio expressed by Ben Franklin: “it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer”
With that in mind, Trump should issue a blanket pardon covering the entire Capitol building and vicinity for about a mile, over a ten-hour period, for any and all actions taken during that time. (to parallel the ten year period Biden issued for Hunter). Yes, it will include some goats. So what. Move on. We have four years of Trump to fix the corruption that allowed this abomination of political criminal prosecutions, and hopefully eight years of Vance to finish flushing out the rest of the the power-hungry careerists and make Justice live up to its name.
Rather than “sources” that attended, what the people allegedly dressed as Trump supporters that may have already been inside?
The government now admits that the FBI had 26 Confidential Human Sources at the Capitol on January 6th and most (17) of them committed crimes but NONE of them have been charged.
Note that this is just the CHS-s
It doesn’t include the non-uniformed FBI
The miracle that we are all missing is that every single person involved in this learned about it only just today! The mana of an incipient Trump presidency is powerful indeed!
Sounds like Biden is trying to use his final days to release tidbits to let the air slowly out of the bubble.
Of course there were, did you actually expect honesty from the government? What in your lifetime would cause you to expect that?
The January 6th “insurrection” was a Dhimmi-crat/Deep State/FBI false flag event, incited by FBI plants-provocateurs.
There is precedent for this type of dirty tricks op, by the way, in the Dhimmi-crats soiled playbook — in 2016, crone Clinton’s campaign hired provocateurs to attend candidate Trump’s rallies, in order to foment violence and confrontation, so as to create bad publicity and the appearance of chaos and disorder around Trump and his supporters.
He spelled Judas Goats wrong.
We now know that the FBI was aware that hundreds of people might attempt to break into the Capitol to disrupt certification of the election. Yet, apparently the FBI did not send a force of agents to prevent such a possibility; the Capitol Police took no action sufficient to prevent the incursion; and Mayor Bowser and Speaker Pelosi turned down Trump’s offer to provide National Guard troops to protect the Capitol. This suggests either extraordinary incompetence and negligence or a plan to essentially ambush the people who would enter the Capitol. I suspect both were at play. That there was an intended ambush is supported by the actions of the DOJ, the house J6 Committee, and the Democrats after the event. DOJ prosecuted ALL people who entered the Capitol, however innocent of intention to harm they may have been and charged them with felonies rather than the simple misdemeanor of trespass that was warranted in most cases. The J6 Committee sought to build a case of insurrection by Trump and MAGA adherents by excluding Republicans from the committee, hiding facts, and telling lies. And the Democrats picked up the results of the House J6 hearings to campaign against Republicans. All these actors created, exaggerated, and employed so much politically valuable ammunition from the January 6 riot that (especially given the deceitful and generally immoral approach that Democrat’s use in politics) one must conclude it’s most likely there was indeed a plan, which was successfully implemented, to ambush the people at the Capitol on January 6.