By Lucretia Hughes Klucken
WASHINGTON — Newly released FBI records and renewed congressional scrutiny are putting the bureau’s activities before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach back under the microscope, reviving questions raised for years by Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., about the FBI’s use of confidential sources and its intelligence operations surrounding the event.
Higgins has repeatedly alleged that the FBI’s involvement went far beyond responding to the Capitol after violence began. He has said FBI personnel or assets infiltrated groups and online communications involving supporters of then-President Donald Trump before Jan. 6 and has publicly estimated that more than 200 FBI “assets” were operating among demonstrators or related groups. Those claims have not been established by the Justice Department inspector general’s investigation.
What has been officially confirmed, however, is that FBI confidential human sources were present in Washington on Jan. 6.
A December 2024 report from the Justice Department Office of Inspector General found that 26 FBI confidential human sources, commonly called CHSs, were in Washington in connection with Jan. 6 events. Three had been tasked by FBI field offices to report on specific domestic terrorism subjects who were potentially traveling to Washington, while another 23 attended events on their own initiative.
The inspector general found that three of those sources entered the Capitol and another 11 entered the restricted area surrounding the building. None had been authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or restricted grounds, break the law or encourage anyone else to commit illegal acts, according to the report.
The same investigation reached another significant conclusion: It found no evidence that undercover FBI employees were present among the protest crowds or inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. That finding conflicts with the broader allegation that undercover FBI agents had been embedded among Trump supporters before the breach.
That distinction — between FBI employees and confidential human sources — has become central to the continuing dispute over what the government knew and what role its sources played.
Higgins has been pressing that issue publicly for years.
During congressional questioning of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, Higgins repeatedly sought information about confidential human sources present on Jan. 6. Wray declined to discuss operational details involving FBI sources but rejected allegations that FBI confidential sources or employees had orchestrated or instigated the Capitol breach.
Higgins has continued investigating.
His congressional office maintains an archive devoted specifically to Jan. 6, documenting hearings, correspondence, interviews and other efforts examining federal law enforcement’s actions before, during and after the Capitol breach. Higgins has argued that the public deserves a fuller accounting of the FBI’s intelligence gathering and use of confidential sources.
The questions are not limited to who was physically present at the Capitol.
The FBI acknowledged that it was collecting and distributing intelligence before Jan. 6. In congressional testimony after the attack, the bureau said it had gathered information, communicated with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and positioned federal resources for possible deployment as Congress prepared to certify the 2020 presidential election.
That makes the timeline important.
If federal authorities were monitoring potential threats, receiving information from confidential sources and communicating with other law enforcement agencies before Jan. 6, Congress and the public have a legitimate factual question to examine: What information did the government possess, when did it possess it and how was that intelligence handled?
The available evidence does not establish Higgins’ allegation that hundreds of undercover FBI agents were embedded among Trump supporters or that the FBI orchestrated the events of Jan. 6.
But the inspector general’s findings do establish something that was once the subject of considerable public speculation: FBI confidential human sources were present in Washington that day, including some who ultimately entered restricted areas and the Capitol itself.
Those facts make continued transparency important.
Americans should not have to rely on political narratives from either side to understand what their government did before one of the most consequential political events in recent history. Documents, communications, source-handling records and sworn testimony should determine the historical record.
Nearly six years after Jan. 6, the central questions remain straightforward.
Who knew what?
When did they know it?
Who was operating inside the groups being monitored?
And what instructions, if any, were those individuals given?
The answers should come from the evidence.
And every document capable of providing those answers should be made available to the American people, consistent with legitimate legal and source-protection requirements.
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