Feds did not incite Jan. 6 insurrection, probe finds, pushing back on conspiracies

An independent watchdog probe uncovered no evidence that federal agents were involved in inciting the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Thursday, undercutting years of baseless claims spread by far-right political figures who have alleged the FBI played a significant role in the attack.

The long-awaited report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found no evidence that FBI undercover employees were present among the thousands of Trump supporters who stormed the building, or even among the crowds of Trump's supporters who attended protests around Washington, D.C. that day.

While the report confirmed there were 26 informants in Washington, D.C., who were dubbed within the FBI as "confidential human sources" or CHSs, Horowitz uncovered no evidence suggesting that any were instructed to join the assault on the Capitol or otherwise encourage illegal activity by members of the pro-Trump mob.

Moreover, the IG's report found that three of the confidential informants were specifically tasked by FBI field offices with reporting on suspects in specific domestic terrorism cases who were believed to be attending events on Jan. 6, and one of those entered the Capitol during the riot itself.

Twenty-three others were in Washington but were not found to have been instructed to be there by any FBI field offices, and of those 23, three entered the Capitol while 11 entered the restricted areas around the building, the probe found.

The report found that none of the four informants who entered the Capitol have been prosecuted to date by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

In a statement responding to the report's findings, the U.S. Attorney's Office said they have generally "not charged those individuals whose only crime on January 6, 2021 was to enter the restricted grounds surrounding the Capitol, which has resulted in the Office declining to charge hundreds of individuals; and we have treated the CHSs consistent with this approach."

While the FBI has faced serious scrutiny over the past four years over whether they failed to properly prepare for Congress' election certification and the possibility of an attack on the Capitol by Trump's supporters, Horowitz's report determined that the bureau "took significant and appropriate steps in advance of January 6" as part of its supporting role that day.

The report also found that the FBI did not properly canvass all the field offices for intelligence on potential activity prior to the attack.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate described the lack of a canvass prior to Jan. as a "basic step that was missed," and told the inspector general's office that he would have expected a formal canvassing of sources to have occurred.

The inspector general found that while the FBI did not intentionally mislead Congress about the lack of canvassing field offices, they were not accurate in their assessment.

In June of 2023, Senate Democrats released a report that directly faulted the FBI for failing to "sound the alarm and share critical intelligence information that could have helped law enforcement better prepare for the events of January 6th."

The report detailed a series of tips and other online traffic in advance of Jan. 6 that the lawmakers said the FBI was aware of that gave clear indications Trump's supporters were planning for violence to prevent the certification of President Biden's 2020 victory.

In the leadup to Jan. 6, the FBI did not have any "potentially critical intelligence" in their possession that wasn't provided to other law enforcement entities, the IG said in the new report released Thursday.

More than 1,500 people across nearly all 50 states have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, with crimes ranging from illegal trespassing on Capitol grounds, to assaults on federal officers and seditious conspiracy.

Court proceedings over the past three years, including in the seditious conspiracy trial against members of the far-right Proud Boys group, have shed light on some FBI informants who were either monitoring or among those in the crowd of Trump's supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Right wing media and some far-right political figures have seized on the presence of confidential human sources to push the conspiracy theory that the FBI or 'deep state' was involved in fomenting the crowd to violence -- claims that even many attorneys for Jan. 6 defendants have rejected as false.

"Our review determined that none of these FBI CHSs was authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6," Horowitz said in a statement announcing his report.