by John Solomon
Rep. Barry Loudermilk says he fears that the FBI withheld vital intelligence, creating fateful security holes before Capitol riot.
Numerous confidential informants alerted the FBI prior to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot that there was the strong possibility of “armed” conflict at the U.S. Capitol, but that intelligence was not disbursed aggressively enough to force a change in security that fateful day, the first congressman to review those source reports tells Just the News.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee investigating Jan. 6 law enforcement failures, said he was floored to see the specificity of threats and the consistency in warnings that multiple confidential human sources provided the FBI and that the intelligence was serious enough that it should have prompted more security and possibly even a cancellation of President Donald Trump’s speech that day on the Ellipse.
Loudermilk said the intelligence reports came weeks and days in advance of the Capitol riot from about two dozen informants embedded in radical groups around the country and that many of those informants came to the Capitol to keep assisting the FBI.
“I was surprised that we found this significant intelligence that was derived from these people embedded in these organizations,” he said Friday night in an expansive interview on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. “There is no way that at least the Washington Field Office or the FBI headquarters was not aware that there were elements, not the entire crowd. There were elements of people coming to Washington, DC with the intent of attacking the Capitol of the United States.”
The Georgia lawmaker credited current FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi for giving him access to the intelligence reports of the informants and said that it opened a whole new avenue of inquiry into whether some elements inside the FBI withheld intelligence that could have helped Capitol Police better prepare or repel the violence that occurred that day.
“We’re really having a hard time finding really any tangible reports that were sent to the Capitol Police or other agencies. And so my question is, what did they know? When did they know it, and what did they do with the information?” he said.
“I can tell you unequivocally, they had to know that there was something not only bad going to happen, but the reports coming from these confidential human sources, not just one, but multiple sources from multiple organizations across multiple field offices across the nation, were reporting the same thing,” he added.
Loudermilk said the informants made clear to their FBI handlers “that not only was there going to be violence in Washington, DC, at the Capitol on January 6, most of the reports were it was going to be a whole lot worse than what actually it turned out to be."
Pressed further, Loudermilk said he was waiting to have documents further declassified but confirmed multiple informants told the FBI that groups were planning an armed attack on the Capitol, lawmakers or law enforcement during the certification of the 2020 election results that cleared the way for Joe Biden to become the 46th president.
“There were elements, not every group that was there, but there were certain groups that were planning on an armed attack of the Capitol, and even against law enforcement if they got in the way,” he disclosed. “And it's not just isolated. It was, again, from several different places across the United States, and reported to several different field offices.
FBI had as many as 26 confidential informants embedded in Jan. 6 crowd
“One of my concerns about this, and I'm just going to speak from my own self, and one of the, one of the things that I think we need to run down is if they would have passed along this level of intelligence, if they would have shared that level of intelligence, would it had changed the security posture to the extent where President Trump would not have come out and given his speech at the ellipse,” Loudermilk added.
It was revealed last year by the DOJ’s internal watchdog that the FBI had as many as 26 confidential informants in the crowd on Jan. 6 and that some had been passing on warnings to agents about potential violence by right-leaning groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Also warned about Antifa
But Loudermilk revealed for the first time Friday night that one of the groups that were being flagged by the FBI informants was the far-left anarchist group Antifa, which was recently designated a domestic terror group by Trump.
“The answer is yes, there was concerns that Antifa would be embedded within the crowds there,” he said. “There were several references, again, not just isolated to one, but several different field offices, different organizations that were reporting that they had heard that Antifa would be embedded within the crowd.”
FBI officials confirmed to Just the News that their informant did warn of armed conflict and even Antifa, that the reports have now been shared with Congress and that efforts are underway to declassify them, so the public could see the long-hidden warnings.
Just the News has previously reported that Capitol Police intelligence analysts did not receive intelligence warnings of major violence and were led to believe by intelligence partners that Jan. 6 would look like prior peaceful Trump rallies. That assessment led Capitol Police to have a smaller security footprint and for top lieutenants to reject then-Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund’s request days ahead of the event for the National Guard to be deployed for extra security.
Loudermilk released last year videotape of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., admitting she should not have opposed the deployment of the National Guard.
Loudermilk said the intelligence and informants he has now read four years later warranted a far more aggressive security plan than was deployed.
“There should have been even more security put in place. The National Guard should have been at the Capitol the first time Chief of Police, Steven Sund requested it, just based on that information,” he said.
Since the revelation last year of the presence of FBI informants in the Jan. 6 crowd, some have questioned whether their presence had a nefarious intent. Loudermilk said the evidence he has seen leads him to the opposite conclusion, that the informants did a good job warning the FBI, but those warnings fell on deaf ears.
“They are all reporting the same thing, and it's just not prior to January 6. Some of them are reporting during January 6 and post reporting,” he said. “And so that's what I found enlightening. They continue to report what was going on which, which increases their credibility, in my opinion, that they were trying to do the right thing.”
John Solomon
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/j6-shocker-fbi-informants-warned-armed-violence-antifa-presence-riot-lawmaker
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