The disclosure of 274 FBI special agents at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has set off a firestorm of controversy, with FBI Director Kash Patel insisting that the agents only did “crowd control” and President Donald J. Trump saying he wants to identify all of the agents, who he said were “probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists.”
After 56 months of not disclosing the scope of the FBI’s presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, a Sept. 25 leaked report from the House Select Subcommittee to Investigate the Remaining Questions Surrounding January 6 has turned into an online free-for-all — trying to assign blame and determine what the disclosure really means.
‘This was a mass entrapment scheme that was run and operated by the government.’
“It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social. “… 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.”
More than 360 FBI special agents and other staff from the Washington Field Office responded to the rapidly developing events at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, including 274 special agents and 89 intelligence analysts and support staff, the leaked report says. The professional staff did not deploy to the Capitol. A report issued in December 2024 reported 26 FBI informants at the Capitol on Jan. 6, including four who went into the building.
After that news garnered millions of views on social media, Patel went to Fox News to “clarify” that the 274 agents were only there for “crowd control.”
Crowd control?
“Agents were sent into a crowd-control mission after the riot was declared by Metro Police – something that goes against FBI standards,” Patel told Fox News. “This was the failure of a corrupt leadership that lied to Congress and to the American people about what really happened.”
Metropolitan Police broadcast declaration of a riot over police radio at 2:22 p.m.
Patel’s attempt to tamp down the online furor from former Jan. 6 defendants who tried to get this information in their criminal cases didn’t work, with many saying they don’t believe Patel’s explanation.
“Where is the film of one agent doing crowd control? Where is one affidavit in court?” asked former Jan. 6 defendant Larry Brock Jr. “This story doesn’t fly. You definitely need a better PR team. There are cameras everywhere in D.C. Show us the videos of the Hoover building emptying.”
While there is ample video evidence of SWAT teams from the FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals, Park Police, and other agencies sweeping the Capitol after 3 p.m. and escorting lawmakers to the subways, that is not the case with plainclothes FBI personnel. Their presence was most noticeable after 6 p.m., when no protesters were left in the Capitol Building.
The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General said there were no FBI undercover agents in the crowds on Jan. 6. That category is distinct from agents who are described as plainclothes. In the field, plainclothes agents would normally wear their badges on a lanyard or their belts. Some wear blue FBI windbreaker jackets with “FBI” stamped in yellow on the back. Agents who patrolled hallways of the Capitol office buildings before Congress reconvened late on Jan. 6 wore body armor with FBI patches.
Patel’s answer seemed a far cry from the expectations he set up in a May 18 interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
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FBI Director Kash Patel promised a “trove of information” about Jan. 6 on May 18, but no report has been forthcoming since.Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
“We’ve got answers coming. We just found a trove of information, and it’s on its way to Capitol Hill right now,” Patel said. “And they’ve asked, and they’re getting them, and you’re getting answers on January 6.
“You’re getting answers on what sourcing was utilized, what money was utilized, how many assets were utilized, who made those decisions — you’re getting it,” he said. “We can only control the FBI. But you’re getting it from the FBI.”
When Bartiromo asked, “Were there FBI agents under cover egging people on?” Patel replied, “Like I said, that answer is coming, and it’s on its way to Congress.”
Assistant FBI Director Dan Bongino cautioned that people should make the distinction between FBI agents and “assets.”
“I just hope when people put that information out there, they make the distinction,” Bongino said. “Not that it’s better or worse, but there’s a distinction there.”
No “trove of information” has been released since Patel’s interview May 18.
‘FBI provocateurs in the crowd. Peaceful Americans framed. Lives destroyed.’
FBI tactical teams flowed into the Capitol through the Hall of Columns south entrance after the 2:44 p.m. shooting of Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
Security video shows FBI SWAT medics entered the Capitol at 2:49 p.m., turned right, and met a Capitol Police SWAT team that was carrying the mortally wounded Babbitt. The FBI medics set Babbitt on the floor and began lifesaving aid at 2:50 p.m. Babbitt was declared dead at a hospital at 3:15 p.m.
According to Capitol Police CCTV video, an armored vehicle of ATF agents arrived through the Capitol’s south barricade at 2:46 p.m. That ATF tactical team entered the Capitol through the South Doors at 2:48 p.m.
FBI medics, SWAT
An FBI tactical team rolled into the House Plaza parking lot at 2:32 p.m. Off-duty FBI Special Agent Baker Doughty appeared to be waiting for the armored vehicle, as he approached and talked with tactical team agents for about five minutes, according to a court filing by former Jan. 6 defendant William Pope.
Doughty was with two other off-duty agents and former FBI Agent John Guandolo watching the protests from a crowd seated and standing on the House Egg. One of the active-duty FBI agents is seen on video clapping and cheering, “This is huge,” as protesters swarmed up the east steps to the Columbus Doors just after 2 p.m.
Guandolo, former FBI liaison to U.S. Capitol Police, said Doughty and the other FBI agents introduced him to several other off-duty FBI agents at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to an affidavit Guandolo provided in a 2023 Oath Keepers case in Alaska.
Former Jan. 6 defendant William Pope disclosed the presence of several off-duty FBI agents with former FBI agent John Guandolo. They are shown here at 2:57 p.m.U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. District Court/Graphic by Blaze News
Pope said the FBI must have considered Doughty to be on duty that day, since he, Guandolo, and other other agents entered the government-defined “restricted zone.” Doing so off duty would have precluded him from participating in the FBI raid of the home of former Jan. 6 defendant Fi Duong and any other Jan. 6 cases, Pope contends.
The FBI SWAT team left the armored vehicle and headed for the South Doors at 2:53 p.m. That team, led by a plainclothes FBI agent wearing a blue FBI windbreaker, entered the Hall of Columns at 2:53 p.m.
The official U.S. Capitol Police Jan. 6 timeline makes no reference to FBI agents being requested or deployed to the Capitol.
In contrast, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund asked for backup from then-Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee at 12:58 p.m. A large group of MPD officers rushed onto the West Plaza at 1:12 p.m., began hosing the crowd with pepper spray, and set up new police lines.
Chief Sund asked for help from the U.S. Secret Service at 1:01 p.m., the timeline said. At 1:40 p.m., Sund asked for and received confirmation of help from ATF.
While the presence of non-uniformed FBI agents is scarce on security video, large numbers of plainclothes agents wearing body armor are seen on video securing hallways and buildings in preparation for the return of a joint session of Congress after 8 p.m. This happened only after the Capitol had been cleared of protesters.
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An FBI SWAT agent patrols the Longworth House Office Building on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
Former Jan. 6 defendants and attorneys found the 274-agent disclosure especially troubling because the DOJ and FBI refused to provide that information as part of case discovery in the nearly 1,600 criminal cases brought by the DOJ.
“I personally made over a dozen requests … for this stuff,” defense attorney Bradford Geyer, who represented Oath Keeper Kenneth Harrelson at his September 2022 trial, told Blaze News. “Many times, many times.”
Geyer said the failure of the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice to disclose this information during hundreds of cases taints the entire massive prosecution effort. It is more evidence that many or most cases should have been dismissed for withheld exculpatory evidence, he said.
“I’ve always thought that these cases should have just been dismissed en masse because of government conduct and Brady failures,” Geyer said, referring to the duty of prosecutors to produce exculpatory evidence as dictated in the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland.
“This was a mass entrapment scheme that was run and operated by the government,” Geyer said. “We know that that’s what happened, but we’re not quite there yet. If we established that that happened, I bet most people would agree that all cases should be dismissed.
“You could dismiss it on this failure,” Geyer said. “I asked for drone footage; I asked for logs from the U.S. Capitol Police control room; I asked for the video of people going and entering the control room. I asked for all the stuff about the [Columbus] Doors, about the electronic signaling systems to the doors. I never got any of that stuff.”
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An armored ATF tactical vehicle arrives through the U.S. Capitol south barricade at 2:46 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV
After Blaze News disclosed the number of special agents at the Capitol in an article late Sept. 25, battles erupted on social media on the significance of the information.
Some viewed the disclosure as validation of long-held suspicions that Jan. 6 was a “fedsurrection,” while others dismissed the report as nothing more than a standard response to violence and rioting at the Capitol.
“Christopher Wray concealed this from us for four years,” U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), wrote on X. “This is a big deal.”
“J6ers need some reparations,” wrote the Hodgetwins comedians, responding to a Blaze News post on X Thursday night
“If the FBI were smart, they would start selectively releasing some documents to reveal the other agencies that were involved in January 6,” said Pope, who exposed the presence of several off-duty FBI agents at the Capitol Jan. 6. “Why take all the heat yourself?”
John Strand, who went to prison on Jan. 6 charges after his trial in Washington, D.C., said the disclosures need to spark action.
“Today’s revelations prove it: Jan 6 wasn’t justice, it was entrapment,” Strand said on the “The Benny Show.” “FBI provocateurs in the crowd. Peaceful Americans framed. Lives destroyed. The real criminals are those who weaponized our government. They must be investigated, prosecuted, and held accountable.”
No national security event
Former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin told Blaze News he was allowed to take leave on Jan. 6, since the events at the Ellipse and Capitol that day were not designated a National Security Special Event by the Department of Homeland Security. Otherwise, he said, he would likely have been doing countersurveillance at the U.S. Capitol. Instead, he was doing training with Maryland State Police that day.
Seraphin said a report on total federal law enforcement assets at the Capitol Jan. 6 is needed to better understand the full Jan. 6 picture. Federal agencies use a system called the Android Team Awareness Kit to track personnel and give real-time data on movements of agents and other employees.
Seraphin recalled an instance in summer 2020 when his team was ordered to the White House.
“Everybody showed up wearing overt body-armor markings and belts showing a badge. That’s how you show up,” Seraphin said. “You show up as a team, and then you get sent somewhere by some sort of central command unit. … You don’t just show up randomly and then flash a badge and join a skirmish line.”
Pope disclosed in his criminal case that nearly 50 agents from the FBI and various agencies attached to it were working on Jan. 6 and later wrote affidavits of probable cause to support arrest warrants in Jan. 6 cases.
Pope developed a spreadsheet of FBI special agents and other officers from the bureau’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, including a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent from Colorado; an NCIS special agent; FBI special agents from New York, Nashville, Memphis, Newark, Philadelphia, and Albany, New York; and an agent from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, Pope’s motion stated.
‘The real criminals are those who weaponized our government.’
“There is now ample evidence that the FBI had a heavy presence at the Capitol on January 6, which is even more alarming considering the fact that we now know they had intelligence that was not shared with other agencies,” Pope wrote in a 2024 court filing. “This constitutes outrageous government conduct.”
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Two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers watch the crowds on the west side of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.William Pope via U.S. District Court
Pope also disclosed the presence and activities of undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers, some of whom are on camera inciting protesters and helping them climb over barricades to get to the Capitol. There were dozens of MPD officers on Capitol grounds as part of the Electronic Surveillance Unit. Only a small percentage of the video they shot Jan. 6 has been made public.
Geyer said even if FBI agents did nothing nefarious on Jan. 6, their presence gave protesters a false sense of security.
“If you take the FBI agents and the Homeland Security agents — and there was a DEA agent who was badged that Will Pope found walking down Pennsylvania Avenue — and all the federal employees in plain clothes and looked very respectable, that had a psychological effect and influenced the crowd,” Geyer said.
“It gave people a false sense of assurance that the areas that they were in, it was okay to be there because intermixing with the crowd were these very respectable-looking people. So even if none of them got out of hand and they were there for good-faith reasons, it still influenced the crowd.”
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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