FACT FOCUS: Alleged FBI documents do not prove federal agents incited Jan. 6 Capitol attack

President Donald Trump bolstered a years-old conspiracy theory over the weekend, claiming that 50 pages of alleged FBI documents recently made public prove that 274 FBI agents at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were there to incite the attack.

The documents first appeared in an article published Thursday by the conservative site Just The News, which did not blame the Jan. 6 insurrection on federal agents as Trump did. It focused instead on complaints made in an “after-action report” by FBI personnel, who were critical about the bureau’s response that day.

The information — which The Associated Press was not able to verify as authentic — does not support Trump’s claim. It says that FBI agents responded to the U.S. Capitol attack, not that those agents had any role in making it happen.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP: “As it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials.’”

THE FACTS: This is false. The alleged FBI documents to which Trump is referring state on page 46 that 274 agents from the FBI’s Washington Field Office “responded to” to the U.S. Capitol and other nearby locations on Jan. 6. They do not contain any credible evidence to suggest that federal agents were acting as agitators or insurrectionists.

“This number includes agents that responded to the Capitol grounds as well as inside the Capitol, the pipe bombs, and the red truck that was believed to contain explosive devices as well as CDC/ADCs,” the documents read.

The mention of “pipe bombs” refers to the devices planted outside offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees in Washington on the eve of the attack, while “the red truck” refers to a pickup truck filled with weapons and Molotov cocktail components that was parked near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

In addition to information about the agents and other FBI staff who were deployed in response to the Jan. 6 attack, the documents include extensive feedback from alleged bureau personnel about how the FBI responded to the day’s events. There are also suggestions from different operational divisions for future best practices, as well as notes on what went well.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s allegation. The FBI declined to comment.

Rioters determined to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent clash with police. Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that federal agents played a role in instigating the attack became popular soon after and were advanced even by some Republicans in Congress. Many iterations have since been debunked.

A watchdog report published in found that no undercover FBI employees were at the riot on Jan. 6 and that none of the bureau’s informants were authorized to participate. Informants, also known as confidential human sources, work with the FBI to provide information, but are not on the bureau’s payroll. Undercover agents are employed by the FBI.

It does state that “after the Capitol had been breached on Jan. 6 by the rioters, and in response to a request from the USCP, the FBI deployed several hundred Special Agents and employees to the U.S. Capitol and the surrounding area.” USCP refers to the U.S. Capitol Police.

According to the report, 26 informants were in Washington on Jan. 6 in connection with the day’s events. Of the total 26 informants, four entered the Capitol during the riot and an additional 13 entered a restricted area around the Capitol. But none were authorized to do so by the FBI, nor were they given permission to break other laws or encourage others to do the same. The remaining nine informants did not engage in any illegal activities.

It wasn’t clear prior to the report’s release how many FBI informants were in the crowd that day. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who resigned in January at the end of the Biden administration, refused to say during a congressional hearing in 2023 how many of the people who entered the Capitol and surrounding area on Jan. 6 were either FBI employees or people with whom the FBI had made contact. But Wray said the “notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous.”

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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.