Despite a Department of Justice (DOJ) watchdog report which found that the FBI had 26 confidential human sources (CHS) at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, CNN and Politico emphasized the part of the report that said the FBI had no undercover agents at the Capitol.
Politico ran a story with the headline “FBI didn’t deploy undercover agents on Jan. 6, watchdog report finds, undercutting conspiracy theories.”
This is incredibly misleading and fails to mention the 26 FBI informants who were at January 6th, including four who entered the Capitol during the riot. https://t.co/33swUlFAtB pic.twitter.com/nLDbd6np2H
— James Lynch (@jameslynch32) December 12, 2024
The report from the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concluded that the FBI did not deploy any undercover employees at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6,” the report said.
However, that same report also said the FBI had 26 confidential human sources, or informants, at the Capitol, three of which the FBI had directly instructed to attend “to report on specific domestic terrorism case subjects who were possibly attending the events.”
Only one of those three entered the actual Capitol building, though the other two entered restricted zones around the Capitol, the report found. (RELATED: Angry Over MAGA Victory, Biden DOJ Attempts One Last Smear Of Jan 6 Defendants)
While Politico did acknowledge these facts in their article, they concluded “The report throws cold water on theories that have become gospel among some segments of Donald Trump’s supporters, who have accused the FBI of fomenting violence on Jan. 6 in order to entrap Trump supporters.”
WASHINGTON, DC, JANUARY 6: Jacob Chansley, a.k.a. Jake Agneli, a supporter of President Donald Trump, rallies at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., January 6, 2021, to protest the election of President-Elect Joseph Biden The US Congress is set to certify the electoral results for Biden today. Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
CNN also ran similar coverage, inviting former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe onto their network Thursday to react to the “DOJ report finding no undercover agents at Capitol on Jan. 6.”
“To be clear, what the IG determined was there were no FBI undercover employees. Not a single one at the rally or on the Capitol that day. There were three informants — these are private citizens who provide information to the FBI under their own, for their own reasons. Three who were actually sent, asked to attend the rally and went and reported back on the domestic terrorism subjects that were under investigation and who we knew would be there,” McCabe told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Thursday.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe weighs in on the Justice Department Inspector General’s report about the FBI and January 6.
“The fact that informants might have been reporting on subjects of investigation as is their job … that’s not a dangerous conspiracy theory.… pic.twitter.com/BTEIWODil0
— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) December 13, 2024
McCabe also spoke about the other 23 informants who the report found went to the Capitol on their own volition.
“There were an additional 23 informants who just went, because that’s what they do. They are people in these communities, in these extremist groups, who also report and provide information to the FBI and they spend time with these people,” McCabe said.
Of the 26, only four actually entered the Capitol building, according to the report. Prosecutors, McCabe noted, have not accused any of the 26 of “doing anything violent or committing crimes.”
The OIG report, however, noted that none of the informants were authorized to enter the restricted grounds or the Capitol building.
Legal expert Jonathan Turley questioned why none of the informants got charged for breaking the law.
“Only three of them were told to be there. The question is, really, these other people,” Turley said in a Thursday appearance on Fox News. “We’ve had cases in the past where the defense has argued that sources and agents have been extremely active in pushing people towards criminal conduct. We saw those allegations raised in the Michigan case involving the governor there.”
Turley was referring to the 2020 plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Two men, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., were convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and possession of a weapon of mass destruction for their alleged plot to kidnap Whitmer from her summer home.
FBI informants were heavily involved in the plot and outnumbered the two defendants at some meetings, FBI Special Agent Mark Schweers testified. One female informant, Jenny Plunk, allegedly shared a hotel room with Croft Jr.