Social media users misrepresent a report released on Thursday by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, falsely claiming that this is evidence that the FBI orchestrated the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The watchdog report examined a number of areas, including whether major intelligence failures preceded the riot and whether the FBI had somehow provoked the violence. Claims spreading online focus on the report’s finding that 26 FBI informants were in Washington for election protests on January 6, including three who were assigned to travel to the city to report on others who may have planned to attend the events.
Although 17 of these informants entered the Capitol or a restricted area around the building during the riot, none of the 26 total informants were authorized to do so by the agency, according to the report. They were also not authorized to otherwise break the law or encourage others to do so.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: A December 2024 report released by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is evidence that the January 6 Capitol riot was an FBI plot.
THE FACTS: That’s not true. The report found that no undercover FBI employees were at the Jan. 6 riot and that none of the bureau’s informants were authorized to participate. Informants, also called confidential human sources, work with the FBI to provide information but are not on the bureau’s payroll. Undercover agents are employed by the FBI.
According to the report, 26 informants were in Washington on January 6 in connection with the day’s events. FBI field offices only notified the Washington Field Office or FBI Headquarters of five informants said to be in the field on January 6. Of a total of 26 informants, four entered the Capitol during the riot and another 13 entered a restricted area around the Capitol. Capitol. But none were given permission by the FBI to do so, nor were they allowed to break other laws or encourage others to do the same. The other nine informants did not engage in illegal activities.
None of the 17 informants who entered the Capitol or the surrounding restricted area have been prosecuted, the report said. A footnote said the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, after reviewing a draft of the report, said it “has not generally charged those individuals whose only crime on January 6, 2021 was entering restricted grounds around the Capitol, which has resulted in the Office refusing to charge hundreds of individuals; and we have treated the CHSs in accordance with this approach.”
The assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office’s counterterrorism division told the Office of the Inspector General that he “on January 6, denied a request from an FBI office to have an undercover employee participate in investigative activities. ” He, along with Steven D’Antuono, then deputy director of the Washington Field Office, said FBI policy prohibits undercover employees at First Amendment-protected events without investigative authority.
Many social media users drew false conclusions from the report’s findings.
“JANUARY 6 WAS A SETUP!” reads an X-post that had received more than 11,400 likes and shares as of Friday. “A new Inspector General report shows that 26 confidential FBI/DOJ sources were in the crowd on January 6, some of which went to the Capitol and restricted areas. Is it a coincidence that Wray resigned yesterday?
The mention of Wray’s resignation refers to FBI Director Christopher Wray’s announcement Wednesday that he plans to resign at the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January.
Other users highlighted the fact that 26 FBI informants were in Washington on January 6, but left out important information about the report’s findings.
These claims reflect a fringe conspiracy theory Some Republicans in Congress have suggested that the FBI played a role in inciting the events of January 6, 2021, when rioters determined to overturn Republican Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden stormed the Capitol in a violent confrontation with police. The report debunks that theory. Wray called Such theories were called “ridiculous” during a congressional hearing last year.
The inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the false claims about his report.
In addition to its findings on the FBI’s involvement on January 6, the report said that the FBI, in an action described by its now deputy director as a “basic step that was missed,” failed to recruit informants in all 56 of its offices. field offices are aware of all relevant information in advance. That was a step, the report concluded, “that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners as they prepared ahead of January 6.” However, it did praise the agency for preparing for the possibility of violence and for trying to identify known “domestic terrorism subjects” who were planning to come to Washington that day.
The FBI said in a letter responding to the report that it accepts the Inspector General’s recommendation “regarding potential process improvements for future events.”
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