Citing what they described as new information, President Donald Trump and his allies reinvigorated the debunked conspiracy theory that FBI agents on Jan. 6, 2021, baited rioters into storming the U.S. Capitol.
“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,” Trump wrote Sept. 27 on Truth Social. “This is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again! That’s right, as it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials.’”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted Sept 26 on X that the information about FBI agents in the crowd, “was withheld from the American people by the Democrat-led J6 Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray for over 5 years.”
The information isn’t new; the FBI has long acknowledged it sent hundreds of agents to the Capitol that day to help police respond to the attack. Investigations into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and a recent news story do not show that FBI agents were there as “agitators and insurrectionists,” as Trump said.
The Justice Department inspector general’s office wrote in a December 2024 report that the FBI deployed “several hundred” special agents and employees on Jan. 6, 2021, at U.S. Capitol Police’s request — after the attack began, not before.
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The FBI sent agents in response to pipe bombs found outside the Republican and Democratic parties’ national headquarters, and to a vehicle believed to be filled with explosives, the report said.
Conservative website Just the News reported the 274-agent number that Trump cited. The Sept. 25 article said the outlet obtained a 50-page FBI report that was given to a recently-launched House Oversight subcommittee to reinvestigate Jan. 6, .
The FBI has not publicly released the report; the agency declined to comment or verify the document. But FBI Director Kash Patel referenced it in a recent interview and in social media posts.
The report detailed anonymous FBI employees’ submissions that agents did not have proper safety equipment and training on Jan. 6. Some complained, according to Just the News, that they had become “pawns in a political war” and that the FBI was less competent due to “wokeness.”
The Just the News story also said the 274 agents were at the Capitol in “plainclothes,” but the FBI document makes no mention of that. (PolitiFact reached out to Just the News but did not hear back).
Numerous federal investigations and years of reporting have found that Trump supporters who believed or promoted false claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” orchestrated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson did not provide evidence to support Trump’s statement and instead provided a statement attacking Democrats.
Experts in criminal justice and law enforcement entrapment told PolitiFact they’ve seen no new evidence that any FBI agent or informant incited anyone to commit a crime on Jan. 6.
What we know about FBI agents present on Jan. 6
In the Justice Department’s December 2024 review examining the FBI’s handling of its confidential human sources and intelligence collection efforts in relation to Jan. 6, then-U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said the investigation found “no evidence” of undercover agents in the crowds at the Capitol or surrounding areas.
The report also said FBI policy doesn’t permit undercover employees “in crowds at First Amendment-protected events absent some investigative authority.”
The report said 26 FBI confidential sources who are not bureau employees were in the crowd that day but few of them told the bureau of their plans to attend. None, the report said, were instructed or authorized to violate any laws or participate in the riot, nor were they directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts.
The report provided specific times and locations of FBI agents’ deployments. None of the times were before rioters began to breach the Capitol.
“After the Capitol had been breached on January 6 by rioters, and in response to a request from the (U.S. Capitol Police) the FBI deployed several hundred Special Agents and employees to the U.S. Capitol and the surrounding area,” the report said.
For example, around 2:30 p.m., the FBI’s Washington field office SWAT team came in to assist police in securing the Capitol, the report said, and around 3:15 p.m., another SWAT team deployed to help law enforcement secure the Senate Hart building.
Jesse Norris, a criminal justice professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia, has studied numerous alleged cases of entrapment in FBI counterterrorism investigations. He told PolitiFact the cases involved all types of extremism.
“However, none of them involved undercover agents or informants inciting crowds to commit criminal offenses,” Norris said. “Instead, they typically arose from long-term undercover investigations, supervised by FBI agents but carried out in practice by informants, in which the goal was to secure criminal convictions for particular suspects.”
The FBI’s report said 274 agents were deployed on Jan. 6 and that the number includes agents that responded to Capitol grounds, inside the Capitol building, to the pipe bombs and to a vehicle believed to contain explosive devices.
Patel appeared to counter Trump’s assertion that agents may have been insurrectionists when Patel told Fox News agents were “sent into a crowd control mission after the riot was declared by Metro Police.”
Officials confirmed to Fox News that FBI agents were sent in after the riot had begun and there was “no indication” agents were involved in any events related to Trump’s speech that morning at the Ellipse.
John Solomon, a Just the News reporter and founder of the website, responded to an X post about the article. “Our story does not misrepresent. It clearly states the agents were sent AFTER the violence started,” he wrote Sept. 26.
In November 2023, Wray, who Trump appointed during his first term to head the FBI, told a House committee, “If you are asking if the violence at the Capitol was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents, the answer is no,” Wray said.
Evidence from court documents — including information that led to charges against 1,200 defendants — shows, person-by-person, who ransacked the Capitol and fought with police officers. The rioters’ goal was to prevent Congress from accepting the results of the 2020 election that Trump had lost. In 17 key findings, the House subcommittee that investigated the attack determined Trump disseminated false allegations about the election and summoned supporters to the Capitol and directed them to “take back” the country.
Trump has repeatedly falsely reframed Jan. 6 as a day of peaceful protest, pardoning and ordering the dismissal of criminal charges of nearly every person who participated, including many who attacked law enforcement.
Our ruling
Trump said that on Jan. 6, 2021, FBI agents were “probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials.’”
The FBI has long acknowledged it sent hundreds of agents to the Capitol that day to help police respond to the attack. Investigations do not support the idea that FBI agents were there as “agitators and insurrectionists.”
A Sept. 25 story that shared a newly released report detailing anonymous FBI employee submissions about the agency’s Jan. 6 response also doesn’t support this. It specified agents were deployed after the violence started.
A December 2024 government review into the attack said FBI agents deployed to the Capitol and surrounding areas were not instructed or authorized to violate any laws or participate in the riot, nor were they directed to encourage others to commit illegal acts.
We rate this claim Pants on Fire!
RELATED: All of our fact-checks about Jan. 6
