FBI Director Kash Patel has pushed back on President Trump‘s claim that undercover agents provoked the January 6, 2021, attack, clarifying that the bureau’s role was limited to crowd control after the riot was declared. Patel said the deployment violated FBI protocol but did not amount to instigation, creating a rare public break from Trump’s narrative.
The Department of Justice confirmed that hundreds of agents were mobilized that day to assist local law enforcement and investigate events surrounding the attack. A 2024 Inspector General’s report found that while 26 FBI confidential informants were present, none were instructed to commit or incite violence. An FBI official reiterated that no agents were involved in Trump’s rally at the Ellipse or in sparking the Capitol breach.
Despite these findings, several conservative media outlets, including Just the News, The Blaze, and the New York Post, published reports suggesting that undercover FBI personnel were embedded in the crowd before violence erupted. These claims have since been debunked by the DOJ and independent reviews. Patel himself noted that such reporting has distorted the facts, feeding political disputes over responsibility for the riot.
Patel has accused former FBI Director Christopher Wray of misleading Congress by downplaying the bureau’s presence, calling it a failure of “corrupt leadership.” In a post on X, he said, “274 FBI agents were thrown into crowd control on Jan. 6 against FBI standards,” emphasizing the need for “transparency, justice, accountability.”
Trump continues to insist the FBI orchestrated aspects of the attack, repeating allegations that agents were “agitators and insurrectionists.” Patel’s divergence from Trump highlights internal divisions within the GOP, as the party continues to wrestle with how to frame the legacy of January 6.
Sources
Discover more from News Facts Network
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
