The president’s baseless claim continued a yearslong effort to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack.
By Kyle Cheney and Irie Sentner
President Donald Trump on Saturday falsely accused the FBI of fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol — a sharp escalation of his attacks on the bureau and his effort to downplay the violence a mob of his supporters inflicted that day.
Trump on social media said the FBI had “secretly placed” 274 agents into the crowd of rioters who stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
His comments stemmed from reports Friday in right-leaning media that appeared to conflate the FBI’s response to the Jan. 6 attack — the bureau has long acknowledged sending agents and support personnel to the Capitol after the breach to help restore order — with conspiracy theories that the bureau embedded undercover agents to ignite the attack in the first place.
In reality, the inspector general of the Justice Department revealed 10 months ago that “hundreds” of FBI agents went to the Capitol to assist at the request of the beleaguered Capitol Police. The bureau also had personnel responding to pipe bombs placed outside the national Republican and Democratic parties’ headquarters and to a vehicle full of explosives.
The inspector general did find that 26 FBI confidential sources — who are not employees of the bureau but have at times shared information — were among the crowd that day. But nearly all of them, the IG found, did not tell the bureau of their plans to attend, and none were instructed to violate any laws or participate in the riot.
The IG report also found “no evidence” that the agency had “undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6.”
The president’s post appears to be an escalation that falsely accuses the agency of inciting the riot, based on a series of reports across conservative websites. On Thursday, Just The News said it obtained an “after action report” that was turned over to a recently launched House subcommittee to reinvestigate Jan. 6. Just The News claimed the report — of which the veracity has not been confirmed by POLITICO — revealed the FBI “had a total of 274 agents deployed to the Capitol in plainclothes and with guns after the violence started” but with no clear identification.
The Blaze, citing an unnamed congressional source, said the agency “acknowledged it had 274 plainclothes agents in the massive crowds on Jan. 6, 2021.” Both outlets reported that hundreds of officers were there in plainclothes, but that doesn’t appear to be supported by the document posted by Just The News.
Nevertheless, Trump leaned into the conspiracy theories, accusing the agents, with no evidence, of “probably” acting as “Agitators and Insurrectionists.”
“I want to know who each and every one of these so-called ‘Agents’ are, and what they were up to on that now ‘Historic’ Day,’” Trump said. “Many Great American Patriots were made to pay a very big price only for the love their Country.”
Two days after he helped engineer the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, Trump used the inaccurate description of the bureau’s Jan. 6 response to suggest Comey’s successor — Christopher Wray — misled Congress.
“That’s two in a row, Comey and Wray, who got caught LYING, with our Great Country at stake,” Trump said.
Trump has repeatedly sought to reframe the attack on the Capitol as a day of peaceful protest. Thousands of his supporters ransacked the Capitol, injuring 140 police officers and sending Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence fleeing for safety.
Trump pardoned and ordered the dismissal of criminal charges of nearly every participant in the attack, including many who bludgeoned and maced police officers.
Spokespeople at the FBI and the White House declined to comment.