The FBI not only had paid informants at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but had so many of them that it lost track and later had to perform an audit to determine exactly how many “Confidential Human Sources” run by different FBI field offices were present that day, a former assistant FBI director told Congress.
At least one informant was communicating with his FBI handler as he entered the Capitol, according to Steven D’Antuono, formerly in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office.
D’Antuono confirmed whistleblower accounts of the feds' presence as he testified behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee that his office was aware before the J6 protest that some of their informants would attend President Donald Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally, but he only learned after the fact that informants run by other field offices also were present, along with others who had participated of their own accord, Miranda Devine noted in a Sept. 19 report for the New York Post.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray sent on Sept. 19, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan described D’Antuono’s testimony as “extremely concerning.”
The testimony suggests that “the FBI cannot adequately track the activities and operations of its informants, and that it lost control of its CHSs present at the Capitol on January 6,” Jordan wrote.
“These revelations reinforce existing concerns, identified by Special Counsel [John] Durham, about the FBI’s use of, and payment to, CHSs who have fabricated evidence and misrepresented information. The Justice Department Inspector General also identified critical problems in the FBI’s CHS program,” Jordan added, “including the FBI’s failure to fully vet CHSs and the FBI’s willingness to ignore red flags that would call into question an informant’s reliability.”
WorldTribune.com reported in July that a whistleblower FBI agent told the House Judiciary Committee that Deputy Director Paul Abbate opposed any public acknowledgment of at least 25 FBI confidential human sources or informants who were in and around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
According to the whistleblower disclosure sent to the panel, Abbate notified one or more of his subordinates that confidential human sources should not be named, in part because some informants were too problematic or embarrassing to have their existence made known to the public.
Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Washington Times that the FBI should have known that things were going to escalate at the planned J6 demonstrations.
“They just knew or should have known that what was going on, and one or more of those people in order to keep their cover, could well have been part of the reason that this got so far out of hand,” Issa said.
Defense lawyers at the trial of five Proud Boys recently asserted that the FBI had as many as eight informants spying only on the Proud Boys and that at least one was with them at the Capitol on J6.
Former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund has said that, in addition to the paid informants, the FBI had at least 18 undercover agents in the crowd plus an estimated 20 from the Department of Homeland Security.
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