A member of Congress investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol estimates the FBI had 200 undercover assets both inside and outside the building.
“We believe that there were easily 200 FBI undercover assets operating in the crowd, outside the Capitol, embedded into groups that entered the Capitol or provoked entry of the Capitol,” Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said.
Higgins appeared on the Tucker Carlson Network for an interview that aired Saturday, the third anniversary of the day now commonly known as J6. He’s among the few elected Republicans still questioning the official media narrative about the day’s events.
“Given the scope of the operation and the number of doors where entry was allowed or even encouraged—and the number of people that were actually outside the Capitol and that entered—we believe 200 [is a] conservative number,” Higgins said of his estimate.
Carlson reacted with alarm.
“It’s shocking what you’re saying and confirms everyone’s worst suspicions about this,” Carlson told Higgins. “It’s clearly true.”
Based on the evidence he’s reviewed, Higgins said FBI assets worked with the local Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police. The assets were dressed as supporters of then-President Donald Trump inside the Capitol, “because those were the guys that knew their way around the Capitol.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray has refused to answer questions about undercover FBI assets on Jan. 6, telling Higgins at a congressional hearing, “You should not read anything into my decision not to share information on confidential human sources.”
In remarks about the Jan. 6 anniversary, Attorney General Merrick Garland boasted Friday that more than 1,250 individuals have been charged for their involvement, with more than 890 convicted.
“Since the Jan. 6 attack, the Justice Department has engaged in what has become one of the largest and most complex and resource-intensive investigations in our history,” Garland said. “Our work continues.”
President Joe Biden used the anniversary of Jan. 6 to attack Trump in his first campaign speech of 2024.
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“It was on that day that we nearly lost America, lost it all,” Biden said Friday at a speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
Carlson opened his interview with Higgins by criticizing “professional liars” who have presented a one-sided narrative about what happened on that day. Higgins, who worked in law enforcement before his election to Congress, has led the charge after being frustrated by the official congressional committee that investigated Jan. 6, which was stacked with anti-Trump lawmakers. Ever since Republicans reclaimed control of the House in 2023, members like Higgins have pressed for answers.
For example, as a member of Congress familiar with the U.S. Capitol, Higgins said it’s unfathomable to believe that everyday Americans in Washington, D.C., would know how to navigate the building without help.
“There’s no way they can come in some random door that gets opened and then get their way directly to Statuary [Hall] or the House chamber or the Senate chamber. It’s just not possible,” Higgins explained. “The FBI assets that were dressed as Trump supporters that were inside the Capitol were there, I believe, and evidence indicates that they were there to specifically wave in the Trump supporters that had gathered outside the Capitol.”
Higgins told Carlson these undercover assets guided protesters “directly to the areas where the FBI, the DOJ, and the Deep State actors” would later be able to implicate them for arrest and prosecution.
When pressed on who could have orchestrated such a massive operation, Higgins put the blame on not on a single person but rather a combination of anti-Trump actors working in cahoots with Democrats.
“It’s a complex web of FBI assets across the country that can be activated. So, if you have authority at some of the highest levels in the FBI, it doesn’t take much,” Higgins said. He added that those who planned it were “the faction within the FBI and within our intelligence services that would coordinate with the most extreme liberal factions within the Democrat Party that were desperate to keep Trump out of office.”
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Higgins identified the 200 undercover assets as confidential informants, registered informants, nonregistered informants, and voluntary informants.
Ultimately, Higgins said, they had a goal of tarnishing not just Trump’s reputation but also the people associated with the Make America Great Again movement.
“Their objective was to destroy the entire MAGA movement,” Higgins said, “to forever stain the patriotic fervor that was associated with the America First MAGA movement that had won in 2016 and we believe won again in 2020.”
Higgins called the FBI’s involvement “conspiratorial corruption,” and said it predated Jan. 6 for many months when FBI assets were engaged in online forums of Americans who questioned COVID-19 restrictions and the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.
“I’m following the evidence, and to my horror, it implicates our FBI at the highest level,” Higgins told Carlson. “A conspiracy within our government at the highest level to set the stage for a compromised election cycle in 2020. And then the actions that took place on J4, 5, and 6, and then the criminal investigation, arrest, and prosecution of Americans that they were able to entrap.”
Higgins, who was first elected in 2016 to represent southwestern Louisiana, is now pressing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to release more information, beyond just video footage, about Jan. 6. He said the only true way to uncover what really happened is for the American people to have access.
“He has a responsibility to fully release that data,” Higgins said of Johnson. “And then the American people will see for themselves what some of us have already learned, to our horror, to be true.”
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