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 on Jan. 6, 2021, and none of the bureau's informants were 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 was narrow in scope, but aimed to shed light on gnawing questions that have dominated public discourse, including whether major intelligence failures preceded the riot and whether the FBI in some way provoked the violence. It's the latest major investigation about a day unlike any other in U.S. history, one that has already yielded congressional inquiries and federal and state indictments.
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 canvas 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."
The report did find that 26 FBI informants were in Washington for election-related protests on Jan. 6, including three who had been tasked with traveling to the city to report on others who were potentially planning to attend the day's events. But while four informants entered the Capitol, none had been authorized to do so by the bureau or to break the law or encourage others to do so, the report said.
Many of the 26 informants did provide the FBI with information before the riot, but it "was no more specific than, and was consistent with, other sources of information" that the FBI had acquired.
The FBI said in a letter responding to the report that it accepts the inspector general's recommendation "regarding potential process improvements for future events."
The lengthy review was launched days after the riot as the FBI faced questions over whether it had missed warnings signs or had adequately disseminated intelligence it had received, including a Jan. 5, 2021, bulletin prepared by the FBI's Norfolk, Va., 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, who announced this week his plans to resign at the end of Biden's term in January, has defended his agency's handing of the intelligence report. He told lawmakers in 2021 that the report was disseminated though the joint terrorism task force, discussed at a command post in Washington and posted on an internet portal available to other law enforcement agencies.
"We did communicate that information in a timely fashion to the Capitol Police and (Metropolitan Police Department) in not one, not two, but three different ways," Wray said at the time.
Separately, the report said the FBI's New Orleans field office was told by a source between November 2020 and early January 2021 that protesters were planning to station a "quick reaction force" in northern Virginia "in order to be armed and prepared to respond to violence that day in DC, if necessary."
That information was shared with the FBI's Washington Field Office, members of intelligence agencies and some federal law enforcement agencies the day before the riot, the inspector general found. But there was no indication the FBI told northern Virginia police about the information, the report said. An FBI official told the inspector general there was "nothing actionable or immediately concerning about it."
The conspiracy theory that federal law enforcement officers entrapped members of the mob has been spread in conservative circles, including by some Republican lawmakers. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., recently suggested on a podcast that agents pretending to be Trump supporters were responsible for instigating the violence.
FILE - Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, March 11, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)