FBI strategy memo on election violence raises questions about double standard between J6, BLM riots

When the FBI prepared on the eve of the 2020 presidential election for possible violence in case of a disputed election, it made no distinction between left and right-wing groups when it recommended prosecutions to deter illegal activity. 

Yet, months later, there was a disparity in how the FBI, the Justice Department, and local prosecutors were treating illegal activity during the breach of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, compared to the summer of 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.  

An FBI memo reported on by Just the News earlier this week shows the bureau's Boston office led a tabletop exercise and culled open-source intelligence on the potential for violence from both left-leaning anarchists to right-leaning extremists. It recommended relying on undercover informants and aggressive prosecutions for minor crimes to keep tabs on potentially violent groups and deter them. 

90% of 2020 BLM protesters were not jailed, but 84.6% of J6 rioters convicted

The document raises new questions for congressional investigators about why the bureau failed to heed its own warnings ahead of the Capitol riot and whether it provides further evidence there was a double standard in federal prosecutions. 

News outlets have reported for years on the fact that a vast majority of cases against protesters who broke the law during the fiery and violent summer of 2020 were dropped, especially by localities. A 2021 analysis from The Guardian found that this happened in about 90% of cases across a dozen U.S. jurisdictions that experienced protests. 

In Houston, one of the epicenters of protests in Texas, about 93% of all charges brought were dropped, The Guardian reported. This is despite the fact that the demonstrators blocked a federal highway, threw objects at police officers, and damaged buildings. Eight officers were also injured. In Philadelphia, where protesters smashed windows, looted stores, and set fire to police cars, at least 95% of the arrests resulted in no prosecutions or dropped charges.

Many of these cases were handled by local prosecutors. In the more than 300 federal cases brought against those involved in the protests, fewer than half pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, the Associated Press found.  

Conversely, more than 1,500 individuals were arrested in connection with the Capitol riot, resulting in 1,270 total convictions–making that outcome about 80% of the cases–on the eve of President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardon last year. That comes out to about 86%.

Federal prosecutors also used a controversial statute that allowed them to prosecute some of those who were charged with obstructing an official proceeding for interrupting the Jan. 6 congressional certification of the electoral college vote. The statute was also used in some of the charges levied against President Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith in his case arguing Trump was directly responsible for the violence that day. 

That interpretation of the statute, which Republicans often pointed to as evidence of the double standard of aggressive prosecutions, was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2024. The high court ruled that the law only applied when a defendant prevented the use of “records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding.”

Trust in the justice system eroded by imbalance

Former FBI special agent and Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the first Trump administration, Mark Morgan, told Just the News that even the perception of a double standard in these cases undermines faith in the justice system.   

“Whenever there's a perceived appearance of a double standard, especially when it's based on some legitimacy, the first thing that happens immediately is the public's trust in the system of justice as the country starts to erode,” Morgan told the Just the News, No Noise TV show.  

“We saw, as cities were burning, how you had the liberal media and the liberal politicians, you know, out there saying, ‘Oh, well, don't worry about it, it's mostly peaceful protests,’ as cities were actually burning to the ground behind them,” Morgan said. CNN and others were lambasted for downplaying the destructive and violent activity, while viewers could see stores and government building burning down.

Even the FBI’s own agents deployed to the scene of the Capitol riot felt that the bureau had a double standard of justice, raising concerns in an after-action review that they had become “pawns in a political war,” Just the News previously reported.   

FBI insiders say the bureau is "infected with political biases and liberal ideology"

A report obtained by Just the News last year showed scores of FBI agents and personnel – many from the bureau’s premier Washington field office (WFO) – sent anonymous complaints to the after-action team detailing how agents were sent into an unsafe scenario without proper safety equipment or the ability to identify themselves readily as armed officers to other police agencies. 

The most persistent complaint was that the bureau had become infected with political biases and liberal ideology that treated the protesters from the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter riots far differently than those arrested in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 episode.

“The FBI should make clear to its personnel and the public that, despite its obvious political bias, it ultimately still takes its mission and priorities seriously,” one employee wrote in a stinging review. “It should equally and aggressively investigate criminal activity regardless of the offenders' perceived race, political affiliations, or motivations; and it should equally and aggressively protect all Americans regardless of perceived race, political affiliations, or motivations.”

Many others shared similar complaints about the FBI, the report shows. 

Former Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, who resigned in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot, told Just the News that when the response to the summer 2020 protests is compared to the response to the Jan. 6 riot, it shows an obvious double standard. 

“[The FBI memo] came out on August 21, not even two months after you had the three days of riots at the White House, they shut down White House operations. More people, more officers were injured between May 30 and June 1 up at the White House, 2020. During this protest, more damage was done than on January 6, yet not a single prosecution,” Sund told the John Solomon Reports podcast. 

“That's dumbfounding,” he added.