FBI missed 'basic step' gathering intel in the lead-up to Jan. 6, DOJ watchdog finds
The FBI failed to take the "basic step" of canvassing its field offices for intelligence ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a Justice Department's inspector general report found.
WASHINGTON — The FBI failed to take the "basic step" of canvassing its field offices for intelligence ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a long-awaited Justice Department's inspector general report released Thursday.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told investigators that the lack of a canvass was a "basic step that was missed" and that he would have expected it to have occurred, the inspector general's office said.
The inspector general did find that the FBI "recognized the potential for violence" and took "significant and appropriate steps" even though it played "only a supporting role in preparing for and responding to" the events of Jan. 6.
The report also includes details that will almost certainly fuel the "fedsurrection" narrative that has been growing on the right and among Donald Trump supporters: the false notion that the federal government was responsible for instigating the attack.
Trump supporters clash with police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images fileWhile the review found "no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6," the inspector general's office said 26 confidential human sources, or CHSes, were in Washington that day. None of them were "authorized by the FBI 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," the inspector general said.
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