Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday that the FBI used undercover sources as part of its response to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, a revelation that lends clarity to an aspect of the event that has long been a source of speculation.
Horowitz said in a long-awaited 84-page report that 26 FBI sources, most of whom were unpaid, were in Washington for the riot. Some of them were embedded among rioters in restricted areas, and four FBI sources also entered the Capitol with them. He noted, however, that the FBI did not authorize any of those undercover, known as “confidential human sources,” to enter the Capitol or otherwise break the law.
The FBI sources who entered the restricted areas have not faced any charges to date, Horowitz said.
The DOJ, through U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves’s office in Washington, D.C., has charged more than 1,500 people in connection to the riot in the past four years. A majority of them have faced minor trespassing violations, while hundreds of others have faced more serious charges, such as assaulting police officers or destroying property.
The defendants were largely supporters of President-elect Donald Trump and participated in the riot as part of a protest of the 2020 election results. Since the incident, a faction of Trump’s supporters have spread the theory that law enforcement organized the riot or abetted participants, but Horowitz did not reach this conclusion.
The inspector general did find that the FBI failed to check with its field offices as part of its preparation for Jan. 6. FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate conceded that the bureau missed this “basic step” during an interview with Horowitz.
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“While the FBI undertook significant efforts to identify domestic terrorism subjects who planned to travel to the Capital region on January 6 and to prepare to support its law enforcement partners on January 6 if needed, we also determined that the FBI did not take a step that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations in advance of January 6,” Horowitz wrote.
The inspector general said his investigation into the FBI’s preparations and response to the riot involved interviewing more than 200 witnesses and reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents.
This story is developing.