Report finds FBI faults

WASHINGTON — The FBI should have done more to gather intelligence before the Capitol riot, according to a watchdog report Thursday that also said no undercover FBI employees were on the scene Jan. 6, 2021, and none of the bureau’s informants was authorized to participate. The report from the Justice Department inspector general’s office knocks down a fringe conspiracy theory advanced by some Republicans in Congress that the FBI played a role in instigating the events that day, when rioters determined to overturn Republican Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden stormed the building in a violent clash with police.

The review, released almost four years after a dark chapter in history that shook the bedrock of American democracy, was narrow in scope, but aimed to shed light on gnawing questions that dominated public discourse, including whether major intelligence failures preceded the riot and whether the FBI in some way provoked the violence. The report offers a mixed assessment of the FBI’s performance in the run-up to the riot, crediting the bureau for preparing for the possibility of violence and for trying to identify known “domestic terrorism subjects” who planned to come to Washington that day. But it said the FBI, in an action the now-deputy director described as a “basic step that was missed,” failed to canvass informants across all 56 of its field offices for any relevant intelligence.



That was a step, the report concluded, “that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations in advance of January 6.” In addition, the watchdog found that 26 FBI informants were in Washington for election-related protests on Jan. 6, and though four entered the Capitol during the riot, none were authorized to do so or to break the law.

Many of the 26 informants provided the FBI with information before the riot, but it “was no more specific than, and was consistent with, other sources of information” the FBI acquired. The lengthy review was launched days after the riot as the FBI faced questions over whether it missed warning signs or adequately disseminated intelligence it received, including a Jan. 5, 2021, bulletin prepared by the FBI’s Norfolk, Virginia, field office that warned of the potential for “war” at the Capitol.

The inspector general found that the information in that bulletin was broadly shared. FBI Director Chris Wray has defended his agency’s handing of the report. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.