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A funny thing happened on Thursday after Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released an report about the extent of FBI involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot: All of the most ridiculous right-wing conspiracy-peddlers started celebrating.
Unfortunately, that cohort includes people as powerful as both Vice President-elect JD Vance and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
After sharing a post highlighting just two paragraphs from the report, Vance mused that “For those keeping score at home, this was labeled a dangerous conspiracy theory months ago.”
“Legacy media lies,” declared Musk, reacting a screenshot including the same excerpt.
Why the victory lap? Because Horowitz’s team found that 26 of the bureau’s Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) were present for the riot, and three of them were specifically tasked with attending in order to monitor domestic terror suspects.
This finding is being touted by Vance, Musk, and so many others in order to claim there is merit to a deranged conspiracy theory that January 6 was a false-
For years, many in MAGA World, but perhaps most notably ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have suggested that there was significant FBI involvement in the events of that day.
“There were pretty clearly a number of people in the crowd at the Capitol in January 6 who had been in previous contact with the FBI about what was going to happen that day,” said Carlson in 2021. “Some of them may have encouraged others at the scene to commit crimes. Now, if that happened, and we believe it did happen, it would not be out of character for the FBI. They’ve done things very much like that before.”
Carlson, the star of the Fox Nation “documentary” Patriot Purge and an ally of both Vance and Musk, is hardly alone. The belief is ubiquitous on the fever swamp Right, in no small part because the president-elect himself embraced it.
In July 2023, for example, Trump shared a post on social media claiming that “JANUARY 6 WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE DAY THE GOVERNMENT STAGED A RIOT TO COVER UP THE FACT THAT THEY CERTIFIED A FRAUDULENT ELECTION.”
Of course, none of what Horowitz had to say lends any credence to this lie. In fact, he blew it up.
Confidential Human Sources are not employees of the FBI — Horowitz “found no evidence in the materials we
Moreover, Horowitz found that none of the CHSs present at the Capitol Riot “were 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.”
In other words: The Horowitz report doesn’t vindicate the false-flaggers, it utterly destroys their case. No FBI employees or assets were tasked with instigating illegal activity on January 6, though some apparently well-placed informants were present.
As James Gagliano, a conservative 25-year FBI veteran put it: “To criticize the Federal Bureau of Investigation for having ‘eyes and ears’ (sources) in D.C. on that fateful day, would be folly and naïveté.”
Of course, Vance and Musk kept their own statements brief in order to maintain plausibility. If challenged, they’re likely to insist they were only rebuking the dishonest media for insisting that no one connected to the FBI was involved.
But this is a classic motte-and-bailey. The whole point of all of the claims about FBI involvement in January 6 was to shift the blame for the riot off of Trump and the rioters who committed
Now that this effort has failed, it is no credit to those who proffered it that they are retreating to a picayune criticism of those in the media who may have overstated their case — though it is notable that they offered no examples — while debunking a malicious falsehood.
Indeed, for all their outrage about the media lying to the American people, Vance and Musk have proven themselves disdainful enough of the public to do just that.