The FBI secretly deployed 274 plainclothes agents to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 without clear safety protocols or ways to identify themselves to other law enforcement, according to a long-hidden after-action report now obtained by Congress.
The internal review, kept from the public for more than four years, has exposed sharp internal criticism that the bureau’s leadership had become politically biased and left its own personnel vulnerable in the chaos.
The 50-page report, recently located by FBI Director Kash Patel’s team and turned over to the House Judiciary Committee and its Jan. 6 subcommittee, details anonymous complaints from scores of agents — many from the Washington Field Office — who said they were dispatched into a volatile situation without protective gear, clear orders, or coordination with other police agencies.
“The initial response of having us again respond to a riot by ‘standing the line’ did not seem appropriate because we do not have the gear, equipment, or training for riot control,” one agent wrote. Another said agents were simply told to report to the Capitol and “stand behind MPD” without further direction.
Many agents argued the bureau’s approach reflected a political double standard. They said leaders under former Directors James Comey and Chris Wray treated the Jan. 6 defendants more harshly than the rioters involved in the 2020 unrest following the death of George Floyd.
“Our response to the Capitol Riot reeks of political bias,” one employee said. Another complained that “WFO is a hopelessly broken office that’s more concerned about wearing masks and recruiting preferred racial/sexual groups than catching actual bad guys.”
One frontline agent warned that the FBI had become “pawns in a political war” and called on leaders “to identify viable exit options for FBI personnel who no longer feel it is legally or morally acceptable to support a federal law enforcement and intelligence agency motivated by political bias.”
Several employees criticized the role of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, alleging it pushed investigations into minor offenses while refusing to pursue serious federal crimes. “It is unreasonable for the FBI to conduct investigations involving misdemeanor violations at a federal level… it is not our role,” one agent wrote.
The complaints also underscored lingering anger over the use of SWAT teams to arrest Jan. 6 suspects for misdemeanor charges. “What is even more unacceptable was the hypocrisy displayed by the FBI and its leadership… while we as agents watched cities burn across America during the summer of 2020,” one agent said.
Former Director Wray had repeatedly declined to tell Congress how many agents or informants were present at the Capitol. The revelation that hundreds of FBI personnel were on the ground — many armed, without protective gear or identification — raises potential issues for prosecutions, as undisclosed agent-witnesses could be cited by defendants appealing their convictions.
The internal criticisms were not included in a prior Justice Department Inspector General review, which merely acknowledged “several hundred” agents were deployed.
