FBI had 275 plainclothes agents embedded in Jan. 6 crowds, congressional source says

The FBI has acknowledged it had 275 plainclothes agents in the massive crowds on Jan. 6, 2021, more than four and a half years after questions were first raised about the level of FBI involvement day, Blaze News has learned.

A senior congressional source said the number is not necessarily a surprise, since the FBI often embeds countersurveillance personnel at large events.

But given the FBI’s until-now steadfast refusal to disclose the level of its presence at the Capitol, the figure might still be viewed with skepticism in some quarters.

The news comes in the wake of claims by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General that the FBI had no undercover personnel in the Jan. 6 crowds.

“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 DOJ OIG said in an 88-page report released in December 2024.

Depending how one reads “undercover agents” versus “plainclothes agents,” both statements could be true.

The same report disclosed that 26 FBI confidential human sources were in the Jan. 6 crowds, four of whom entered the Capitol.

The DOJ inspector general said only three of the FBI informants had been assigned by the bureau to come to Washington and report on “domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event.”

The FBI, ATF, and other federal agencies had tactical officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Of the 26 informants, four entered the Capitol during Jan. 6 protests and rioting, the OIG report said. None was authorized by the FBI to break the law or enter a restricted area, “nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6,” the report said.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the chairman of the new House Jan. 6 Select Subcommittee, has also expressed determination to drill down on the FBI presence and roles of agents and informants on Jan. 6.

“But with that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?” Loudermilk said in a Sept. 23 appearance on Just the News.

In a May 2024 court filing, former Jan. 6 defendant William Pope listed nearly 50 FBI agents and others working under the bureau’s auspices on Jan. 6 — such as officers from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, U.S. Army counterintelligence, and other agents who later wrote probable-cause affidavits for Jan. 6 arrest warrants.

It is not clear whether those personnel would be part of the 275 employees disclosed to Congress by the FBI.

The FBI has repeatedly rebuffed attempts by Congress to determine the bureau’s level of involvement in the Jan. 6 crowds, either by its own agents or confidential human sources, also known as informants.

The disclosure is unlikely to tamp down questions by former Jan. 6 defendants and others who have long questioned whether FBI personnel took part in, or at least incited, rioting in the crowds.

Undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers have acknowledged inciting the crowds by helping protesters climb over barriers, encouraging them to continue on to the Capitol, and applauding those committing vandalism.

Most of the video footage shot by dozens of undercover MPD officers on Jan. 6 has never been made public, despite attempts by Pope to dislodge the number through court motions in his Jan. 6 criminal case.

The FBI also had tactical teams at the Capitol who responded to help clear the building after Ashli Babbitt was shot outside the Speaker’s Lobby at 2:44 p.m. Other tactical units from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Marshals were also on site.

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