During a press conference on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump was asked whether he would pardon January 6 defendants charged with violent offenses.
Much of Trump’s reply focused on a conspiracy theory – namely, that the FBI used its agents or confidential human sources (CHSs) to instigate the January 6 riot. “As you see, I guess 24 or 28 people came now from the FBI,” Trump claimed. “That came out very quietly, nobody reported it, but they had people in some form related to the FBI.” Trump continued: “They had four or five people that were strongly related to the FBI. We have to find out about that.” (Oddly, he also suggested Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group, was somehow involved in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.)
The president-elect’s remarks about the FBI were referring to a report released by the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) in December. That report was not released “quietly” or with an absence of media reporting. It received widespread press coverage, mainly because it debunks conspiracy theories that Trump and his associates, including his nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, have promoted. Trump’s remarks this week notably dovetail with some of his most prominent supporters who have fundamentally misrepresented the OIG’s findings.
The OIG report contains three key findings:
1. Twenty-six of the FBI’s CHSs were present in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. However, no CHS was “authorized 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.”
2. The FBI tasked just three of its CHSs with traveling to D.C. “for the events of January 6 to report on domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event.” The FBI did not provide any tasks to the other 23 CHSs in Washington that day.
3. The OIG “found no evidence…that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6.” (In some versions of the popular conspiracy theory, the FBI’s undercover agents or employees were to blame, as opposed to the Bureau’s CHSs.)
In short, the OIG’s report does not support the conspiracy theory – it refutes it.
The OIG’s report makes it clear that the FBI was principally interested in gathering information on “domestic terrorism subjects.” Some of the CHSs were tasked with reporting on the Proud Boys – that is, the same rightwing extremists inspired by Trump who were mainly responsible for instigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
While the conspiracy theory blaming the FBI has never been substantiated, and was debunked by the OIG, the Proud Boys’ responsibility has been established in a court of law and beyond a reasonable doubt.
In May 2023, a federal jury in Washington D.C. convicted Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, as well as three other Proud Boys leaders – Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean, and Zachary Rehl – of seditious conspiracy and other charges for a premeditated plan to attack the Capitol. All four men were subsequently sentenced to lengthy terms in prison, ranging from 15 to 22 years.
The OIG’s report contains new details concerning what the FBI’s CHSs reported about the Proud Boys – and what they did not. For example, the FBI “had several CHSs who reported on various chapters or members of the Proud Boys in the lead-up to the January 6th Electoral Certification.” One of these CHSs “was in contact with Tarrio in DC on the evening of January 5” and another “reported on another senior Proud Boys leader in advance of January 6.”
Despite having such well-placed sources, it appears that none of the FBI’s CHSs revealed the Proud Boys’ specific plot for January 6. It is possible, if not likely, that the CHSs did not know the full scope of what Tarrio and his closest confidantes were planning. (It is also possible that some of the CHSs simply did not tell their FBI handlers.)
For example, the Proud Boys kept their communications highly compartmentalized in the lead up to January 6. Some of the CHSs had access to private communications groups in which plans for January 6 were discussed, but it is not clear if any of them had access to the Proud Boys’ “Ministry of Self Defense” encrypted chat on Telegram. It was in this chat that Tarrio discussed “storming the Capitol” and other incriminating details. [For more, see Just Security’s Proud Boys Threat Assessment: From the Planning of January to Future.]
Below, are summaries of the four main CHSs discussed in the OIG report who were reporting on the Proud Boys. The OIG report makes clear that none of them were tasked with entrapping the Proud Boys or others, as conspiracy theorists have alleged and as millions of Americans have come to falsely believe. Some of the CHSs provided general warnings that perhaps should have triggered more alarm bells across the federal government – even though, again, the Proud Boys’ specific plans were not divulged.
CHS #1, reporting on the Proud Boys, “was in contact with Tarrio” and warned “that something big or an uprising” by “right-wing groups” may be in the works.
The first CHS discussed in the OIG report is described as “an active member of the Proud Boys” who “maintains associations with numerous predicated subjects throughout the United States.” The CHS traveled to Washington, D.C. for an election protest on December 12, 2020. Though the FBI was aware of the source’s travel plans, the Bureau did not task the CHS with attending the rally. As documented in the House January 6th Committee’s final report, this mid-December protest created opportunities for the Proud Boys to grow their ranks and mix with other rightwing extremists.
On December 29, 2020, according to the OIG, the CHS informed a “handler” of plans to go to Washington, D.C. for January 6 “along with approximately 100 Proud Boys members to include Enrique (Proud Boys National President) and ‘Tiny’[,] a well known [sic] Proud Boys member and a target of ANTIFA.” (A prominent Proud Boy, Tusitala Toese, is indeed known as “Tiny,” but it does not appear he was involved in January 6. Instead, he was arrested months later after engaging in violent clashes with Antifa members in Portland, Oregon. He was eventually convicted of assault and other charges. It is also possible that some other Proud Boy had the same nickname.)
The CHS also reported that the Proud Boys “will not be flying colors or wearing black and yellow clothing” and that they were planning on staying in a hotel near the U.S. Capitol, though a specific hotel had not yet been identified. The CHS’s reporting is consistent with a directive issued by the Proud Boys’ leader, who instructed the group’s members to avoid wearing their usual black and gold colors – a surprise move that allowed them to blend in with the crowd on January 6.
The CHS provided an intriguing bit of information that was included in the FBI’s FD-1023 reporting:
CHS also reports that members of the Proud Boys and other right-wing groups are beginning to lose faith in Law Enforcement due to the lack of enforcement of violent acts that are being committed by other left-wing groups. CHS is worried that something big or an uprising by these right-wing groups may be eminent [sic].
This warning proved, in part, to be prescient – as the Proud Boys instigated the right-wing “uprising” on January 6 including by helping turn the mob against law enforcement officers. After the attack, authorities discovered that the Proud Boys described police officers as “traitors” in their internal conversations beforehand. As part of their effort to rile up “normies” and others during the riot, the Proud Boys led chants portraying the law enforcement officers defending the Capitol as villains. The group’s members also repeatedly threatened officers, telling them to “honor their oaths” or risk having the rioters “go against” them. Dozens of Proud Boys and their associates were charged with assaulting law enforcement officers on January 6.
That said, there is perhaps a discrepancy between the CHR warning and the events on January 6th. The CHS described the Proud Boys’ rationale as a perceived failure of law enforcement to address violence by others, whereas the Proud Boys’ plan for January 6th was not predicated on the presence or otherwise of counter-protestors or the like. It was an offensive operation to overwhelm police defenses with the objective of stopping the certification.
After the attack on the Capitol, the FBI learned that this same CHS “was in contact with Tarrio” on the night of January 5 and “reported on a meeting with Tarrio and [Stewart] Rhodes,” the leader of the Oath Keepers. This meeting “became a subject matter of the Tarrio prosecution,” the OIG notes. Indeed, federal prosecutors alleged that “a participant” in the January 5 encounter “referenced the Capitol” – though it is not clear what, exactly, was discussed. Regardless, the OIG found that the CHS “did not contemporaneously report this information to the FBI.”
The OIG found that although the FBI was aware of this CHS’s travel to D.C for January 6, it did not provide a task to this source. The OIG also found this CHS “did not enter the Capitol or a restricted area” on January 6.
CHS #2, reporting on the Proud Boys, was “well placed” but reported there were “no specific discussions of weapons or planned violence.”
The second CHS reported to a separate FBI Field Office and is described by the OIG as “well placed with excellent access” inside the RMVE (racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism) and AGAAVE (anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism) movements.
This CHS provided the FBI with information “on a Proud Boys member who was closely associated with Tarrio” and “detailed reporting on Proud Boys-related violence” during the December 12, 2020 election protest in D.C. In addition, this source supplied information concerning a person the CHS identified as a member of a Proud Boys chapter and a “senior leader” in the group. (It is not clear from the OIG’s report if these latter two individuals are the same Proud Boys figure.)
On January 4, 2021, the CHS “reported that 35 to 45 members of an identified Proud Boys chapter were planning to attend a protest event in DC on January 6” and that a “Proud Boys member” had “told the group that they had three donated hotel rooms and identified the hotel in DC.”
An FBI FD-1023 report cited the CHS’s information, stating there had been “no specific discussions of weapons or planned violence.” The CHS had access to “a private communications group on a communications platform” and this chat “was set up for the protest.” The OIG’s report reproduces a quote from this private group, explaining its users were instructed that they “will face the full force of their defense and attacks which could lead to death … we will be the heavy weight line and shield wall breakers to allow our main forces in.”
It is unclear what this line from the FD-1023 report – especially the phrase “shield wall breakers to allow our main forces in” – meant. Without access to the full FBI report it is impossible to know the context for this line, or if it was a reference to the U.S. Capitol. It is also unclear whether the “private communications group” was one of the Proud Boys’ encrypted Telegram groups or another one maintained by other extremists. Regardless, the OIG states the CHS’s “handling agent” included this reporting in the Field Office’s files, but did not pass it along to the WFO and “took no additional action.”
On January 4, 2021, the CHS also alerted the Field Office “handling agent” of plans “to travel to DC for January 6 with three other people whom the CHS” identified as members of a Proud Boys chapter. The “CHS was not tasked by the handling agent,” nor was the Washington Field Office notified that the CHS “was traveling to DC for the events of January 6.”
During the riot, the CHS “attempted to contact the CHS’s [FBI] handler four times” and “entered the Capitol.” This CHS “provided information … including cell phone video from the Capitol” that was passed along from the Field Office to the Washington Field Office.
The Washington Field Office then asked the Field Office “to task the CHS with returning to DC for the Inauguration.” And the CHS was reimbursed for travel on both January 6th and for the Inauguration, “even though the CHS was only tasked with attending the Inauguration and not the electoral certification on January 6.”
[Note: The FBI’s response to the OIG provides a good explanation as to why the CHSs who entered restricted Capitol grounds were not prosecuted:
“The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office generally has 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 D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office declining to charge hundreds of individuals; and we have treated the CHSs consistent with this approach.”
However, the FBI does not explain why the 4 CHSs who, according to the OIG, entered the Capitol have not been prosecuted. The details of CHS #2 may indicate some of the reasons. That individual appears to have tried to contact the FBI handler multiple times after the riot began, and provided valuable information from the Capitol for law enforcement purposes.]
CHS #3, reporting on the Proud Boys, “was not aware of any planned violence in connection with January 6,” but provided screenshots of online posts “calling for a civil war” and claiming that a “major shitstorm is bound to ensue between DC police” and “thousands” of Trump supporters carrying firearms.
[Note: CHS#3 appears to match the description of an informant whose information gave rise to conspiracy theories that were debunked by an analysis in the Kansas City Star.]
The third CHS described in the OIG report was “a collaborative source” whose information had been corroborated for more than a decade. This person primarily shared information from online channels “on many different groups, including the Proud Boys.”
In mid-December 2020, this CHS was tasked with providing information on two domestic terrorism “case subjects.” Then, after informing the “handling agent” of an upcoming trip to D.C. with “a group of Proud Boys members” for January 6, the FBI tasked this same CHS with reporting on two domestic terrorism “case subjects from another field office who were planning on traveling to DC.”
The CHS “told the handling agent that the CHS was not aware of any planned violence in connection with January 6.” However, this same CHS did provide the FBI’s field office with general warnings concerning the potential for violence. For example, on December 21, 2020, the CHS provided the “handling agent with screenshots of several posts from an anonymous board on a communications platform showing that many individuals were ‘calling for a civil war on [January 6].’” An FBI FD-1023 report quoted one of the posts as reading:
[A] bunch of Trump supporters are bringing guns to DC on the 6th. A major shitstorm is bound to ensue between DC police and thousands of unlawfully carrying Trump supporters. How will this play out?
The FD-1023 also includes a line that reads: “CHS stated the rally in Washington DC on January 6th should be a concern.” And the CHS relayed that “Normal conservatives are talking about conceal carrying at the rally, and that it is needed to save America.”
Although the FBI Field Office kept track of the CHS’s warnings, the reporting was not passed along to the FBI’s Washington Field Office because, according to the handling agent, “the online posts were anonymous, not specific, and speculative” and the information was not “actionable.” The OIG found that the handling agent’s testimony was consistent with that given by other witnesses, as the Washington Field Office did not want general warnings but instead specific intelligence.
On December 29, 2020, this same CHS reported that a chapter of the Proud Boys “was bringing a group of its members to DC for the January 6 Electoral Certification.” The FBI’s FD-1023 report on the CHS’s information included the text of a message attributed to that chapter’s president, who stated that “[o]ur role at rallies is supposed to be defense only.” The Proud Boys chapter president warned that “conflict is almost certain” because other groups, presumably those opposed to the Proud Boys such as Antifa, would also be attending. The Proud Boys’ chapter president stated that the group’s funds would not be used to post bail for anyone who was arrested by law enforcement and the chapter’s members were expected “to be living inside the laws.” The message also repeated the order from Proud Boys leadership that members were to avoid wearing the group’s signature “black and gold” apparel, including polos, on January 6.
Therefore, none of the information contained in the FBI’s FD-1023 report, which was based on this CHS’s information, indicated that the Proud Boys were planning to go on the offensive on January 6.
The CHS’s handling agent explained to the OIG that the CHS decided “on the CHS’s own initiative, to travel to DC for the events of January 6.” The handling agent believed that the CHS was going to D.C. “to participate in First Amendment activity” and, therefore, did not initially report the planned trip to the Washington Field Office. However, two other FBI Field Offices enlisted the CHS, via the handling agent, to report on two domestic terrorism subjects. The CHS apparently did not get a response after contacting the two subjects. The CHS also contacted a “third case subject,” though it is unclear if this person responded. All three were described by the CHS as “senior” members of a group – presumably the Proud Boys, though the OIG report does not specify the organization.
After Tarrio was arrested on January 5, 2021, the FBI handling agent (prompted by an analyst) asked the CHS “four specific questions related to potential violence in response to Tarrio’s arrest,” as well as “potential violence on January 6.” The CHS said “there were no plans for violence in response to the Tarrio arrest and that the only violence on January 6 would be in self-defense from an identified group.” The CHS also claimed that “rally participants” were using a messaging application to avoid “leftist group detection,” and not because they were concerned about law enforcement. The CHS’s information was not passed along to the Washington Field Office as it was deemed “negative reporting” by the handling agent and the analyst.
The OIG found that this same CHS “entered the Capitol on January 6” even though the CHS “was not authorized to enter the Capitol or a restricted area.”
CHS #4, reporting on the Proud Boys, was “admonished” by an FBI handling agent “not to engage in illegal or violent activity while attending the rally” on January 6.
The OIG describes a fourth CHS as a “a long-term source,” who “reported on multiple militia groups in the CHS’s state” to an FBI Field Office. The CHS informed the handling agent that “the CHS would be attending the protest in DC on January 6 with Proud Boys.” On December 26, 2020, the CHS told the handling agent that “Proud Boys and militia members have expressed interest in travelling to Washington, DC on 01/06/2021 to attend a rally in support of POTUS TRUMP on the day that the Electoral College votes from the 2020 election are expected to be certified.” The “CHS did not have specific names of attendees but will contact [the] handler if CHS is able to determine specifically who is going.”
The OIG report reads: “On January 1, 2021, the CHS again told the handling agent that the CHS would soon be attending the rally in DC on January 6 and in response, the handling agent admonished the CHS not to engage in illegal or violent activity while attending the rally.”
The handling agent “did not task the CHS to perform any activity for the FBI while attending the rally.” The handling agent told the OIG that “his supervisor had made a call to someone at” the Washington Field Office “to inform that person that the CHS would be traveling on the CHS’s own initiative to attend the [January 6] protest and was available for tasking,” but the Washington Field Office “had no tasking for the CHS.”
The OIG found that, on January 6, this same CHS “contacted the handling agent on multiple occasions to report on criminal activities occurring at or near the Capitol, such as the firing of a gun, the entry by persons into restricted areas at or near the Capitol, and the theft of a computer hard drive from inside the Capitol building.” The CHS also “provided photographs and videos to the handling agent documenting the illegal activity.” After the U.S. Capitol was breached, a Field Office supervisor emailed two other agents that there was “an untasked CHS in D.C. who is providing the handling agent reporting from the vicinity of the Capitol Building.”
The OIG determined that this CHS “did not enter the restricted area or the Capitol on January 6.”
Conclusion
The OIG report stresses that the FBI “did not have primary responsibility for intelligence collection or event security on January 6.” Those tasks were the principal responsibilities of other agencies. In addition, the OIG concluded that the FBI “recognized the potential for violence and took significant and appropriate steps to prepare for” its “supporting role,” including by establishing an “FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) command post to coordinate the sharing of intelligence between law enforcement agencies on January 6” and preparing tactical assets in advance should they be needed.
Still, the OIG faults the FBI for failing to “canvass its field offices in advance…to identify any intelligence, including CHS reporting, about potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification.” Canvassing is a “common practice … in advance of a large event, such as the Inauguration, the Super Bowl, or other events with significant attendance,” but it was not performed ahead of January 6, even though the FBI’s Offices were collecting information on the rightwing extremists who ended up leading the attack. The OIG also found that the FBI failed to issue “a formal intelligence collection product specific to both the January 6 Electoral Certification and the January 20 Inauguration,” as only the latter was covered.
Notably, the OIG report states that even though the FBI failed to engage in canvassing its field offices, the OIG “did not identify any potentially critical intelligence related to a possible attack on the Capitol on January 6 that had not been provided to law enforcement stakeholders prior to January 6.” The FBI apparently had sufficient information to anticipate the threat without the need for the additional information that might have been derived through canvassing. Nevertheless, one can imagine the quality and quantity of information from canvassing could have given analysts more confidence in threat assessments as well as provided additional leads, such as information about highly secretive encrypted communication subgroups within the Proud Boys (“the Ministry of Self Defense”), in which we now know their attack plans were openly discussed.
That said, it is clear from the CHS reporting on the Proud Boys that there were plenty of reasons for concern that something more was afoot. And the Proud Boys were not the only group for which the CHSs were collecting information. The FBI had a CHS who “was in contact with [the] leadership for the Oath Keepers,” including the group’s top leader, Stewart Rhodes. One CHS warned an FBI handling agent that “extremist members of [the] Oath Keepers or other groups may become involved in unplanned violent activity on January 6.” A CHS reported that an Oath Keepers “contingent headed to DC is 200+ strong.” One of the CHSs who reported on Rhodes told the FBI that a leader of an unnamed group claimed to have “500 people willing to storm the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.”
Rhodes was subsequently convicted of seditious conspiracy and other serious charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Other Oath Keepers were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges stemming from the breach of the U.S. Capitol as well.
A flurry of other online threats provided by the FBI CHSs made it clear that the U.S. Capitol could be a target. Some of CHSs reported on posts made on TheDonald[.]win – a website dedicated to some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. Some of the posts called for a large protest at the U.S. Capitol, with comments such as: “Bring your guns. It’s now or never,” “Burning down the house!,” and “Might as well erase the second amendment if we aren’t willing to stand up now.” Other posts showed the Capitol being surrounded by “MAGA_CALVARY” caravans.
There are many additional threats reported in the OIG’s report. The bottom line: The system was blinking red because rightwing extremists, not the FBI, were plotting to storm the Capitol. The FBI’s failures were largely acts of omission (failure to address those warnings) not acts of commission that the wild conspiracy theories invent.