A Justice Department watchdog review released Thursday found no proof the FBI had undercover employees among the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The review from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office looked at the FBI’s intelligence collection efforts and its handling of “confidential human sources” in the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol.
The findings stand in stark contrast to misinformation that FBI officials organized the attack. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll taken last year found that a quarter of Americans say it is “definitely” or “probably” true that the agency instigated the Capitol attack.
“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 states.
And of the waves of Donald Trump supporters who poured into the district to protest President Joe Biden’s election win, there were only 26 FBI informants in the District of Columbia on Jan. 6, 2021, in connection to the events, the Justice Department watchdog reported.
Twenty-three were there on their own initiative and the other three were tasked by agency field offices to go to D.C. to “report on domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event,” according to a report on the review.
Informants, also known as “confidential human sources,” or CHS, provide the FBI information on the inner workings of criminal networks.
None of the FBI informants were authorized to go into the Capitol — or a restricted area — and none were directed by the agency to push others to commit illegal acts, according to the report.
Of the 26 informants in Washington, D.C., four entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the report. Others entered the restricted area, while some did not go into a restricted area or the Capitol.
The watchdog found the agency did not take a step that could have assisted the agency and other law enforcement in their preparations.
“Specifically, the FBI did not canvass its field offices in advance of January 6, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS reporting, about potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification,” the report said.
It’s common practice for the FBI to ask field offices to canvass their sources for information ahead of a large event, such as the Super Bowl or an inauguration, several FBI officials told the watchdog, the watchdog wrote.
“FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who was Associate Deputy Director at the time, described the lack of a canvass prior to January 6 as a ‘basic step that was missed,’” according to the report.
Abbate reported he would have expected a formal source canvass to take place “because it would have been the most thorough approach to understanding the threat picture prior to January 6,” the report states.
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