Jan. 6 subcommittee zeroes in on paid informants at the Capitol riot

The chairman of the new House subcommittee aimed at uncovering the truth behind the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., says his panel is concerned about the dozens of paid, federal informants present during the demonstrations, and is concerned that the intelligence they gathered was not properly shared with law enforcement. 

“One thing that we have learned, and this came on the tail end of the Biden administration, when their Department of Justice admitted that they had many, I mean, more than two dozen, paid informants embedded in the crowd,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show yesterday.

How many informants? And what were they paid to do?

“And so my question is, you know…our FBI does pay to have informants through different organizations, and their primary job is intelligence, you know, to provide information. But, with that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?” Loudermilk continued.

The chairman also said he wants to know whether the dozens of informants spread throughout the crowd properly passed any intelligence on to their law enforcement handlers in advance of the protests. 

“​​But of these informants, if they were paid to inform, what information did the FBI actually get from them? How did they not know that this was coming?” Loudermilk asked. 

“If they had that many paid informants, I believe they did know it was coming," he asserted.

Loudermilk said his subcommittee is investigating whether some information from informants may not have been passed on for political reasons by those that wanted to conveniently catch “MAGA” in a riot. 

“You know that we do have evidence that there were people that were instigating, such as a Metropolitan Police Officer that was undercover in plainclothes. The question would be — when we get more evidence of people who are instigating that may be part of the government or maybe in law enforcement — were they caught up in the moment, or did they have orders to do this? Was this pre-planned?” Loudermilk asked. 

Working on several theories

“Or is it just something that somebody decided, you know, that would be really good if we could catch some of these MAGA people rioting at the end of 2020…not necessarily thinking they're going to get into the Capitol, but maybe?” the chairman continued. 

He said that is “one theory we’re working on, as we’re working on several theories, is this just allowed to play out for political reasons?” 

Loudermilk has led a sweeping investigation into both the riot at the Capitol building and the surrounding events for years from his perch at the head of a different subcommittee. But now, House leadership has granted him a new mandate under the House Judiciary Committee to further his probe, this time with a friendly Republican administration in the White House. 

In his prior work, Loudermilk has released explosive evidence ranging from videotapes to internal security memos that were ignored by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 Select Committee, which tried to blame President Donald Trump and his advisors for the riot. Many Democrats still insist on calling it an "insurrection," while legacy media referred to it as a "violent invasion."

However, the evidence–such as videotapes of Capitol doors left unlocked, officers exhorting protesters to enter the Capitol, and intelligence warnings of violence that went unheeded–show that there was much more to the story. 

Loudermilk specifically uncovered footage of plainclothes Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police officers in the Jan. 6 crowd heard exhorting protesters and appeared to help other protesters climb scaffolding and telling them “go, go, go!” 

Police roles need explaining

Another recording from a different MPD officer shows the officer giving water to his colleagues who were suffering from the effects of tear gas which the Capitol Police had deployed against the pro-Trump protesters. While helping his fellow officer, the plainclothes undercover officer told his colleague that “we go undercover as Antifa in a crowd.”

In 2023, Just the News obtained footage showing a door on the west side of the U.S. Capitol was left open and unguarded, allowing more than 300 protesters to enter the building during the height of the riot. Even after the Capitol Police arrived at the doors, they did not block the entryway and protesters continued to flow unimpeded into the building, even as police elsewhere attempted to hold out the crowds.

There is also a growing body of evidence that federal law enforcement was made aware of the possibility of violence, even having at least two weeks to prepare. 

In fact, Capitol Police received alerts from both U.S. Homeland Security and District of Columbia authorities about potential violence at the Capitol, Just the News reported in 2022. That pre-Christmas warning flagged online chatter about waging a “bloody war,” concealing guns, and burning down the Supreme Court, according to internal memos.

The United States Secret Service also developed intelligence about a “high potential for violence” well before the riot, but failed to share that information with its agents guarding Donald Trump, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris that fateful day, Just the News reported last year.