What if Capitol Riots & QAnon Were FBI's Handiwork to Entrap Trump Supporters, Journo Wonders

Last week's Tucker Carlson show about the FBI's role in the 6 January DC riots prompted a huge wave of criticism in the US mainstream press that immediately labeled the Fox News host as a "conspiracy theorist". Commenting on the unfolding fuss, US independent journalist Glenn Greenwald remarked in his blog post that regardless of the MSM efforts to shield the bureau, the question as to why the FBI failed to prevent the 6 January Capitol breach is still sounding alarm bells.

"Given the numerous FBI failures, Greenwald’s may be the most important question Americans should be asking. How could the FBI have allowed January 6 to happen?" asks investigative journalist and founder of Crowdsource the Truth Jason Goodman.  

Goodman excludes the possibility of the FBI being unaware of the upcoming storming of the Capitol. He refers to his earlier interview with John Earle Sullivan, 26, a participant of the breach, who stated that the storming plan had been discussed on social media prior to 6 January.

"Surely if Sullivan knew that, the FBI should have," Goodman believes.

Furthermore, as Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York revealed to the House Oversight Committee and the Reform Committee last Tuesday, the social platform Parler sent the FBI evidence of planned protests in DC on January 6 including "specific threats of violence being planned at the Capitol".

​"Logic dictates, either the FBI was asleep at the wheel again or they did not want to prevent the incident," the investigative journalist says.

FBI's Informants & Spooks Could Infiltrate 1/6 Capitol Riot

However, it appears that the FBI's role in the breach could be bigger than that. Tucker Carlson's show came on the heels of the Revolver News publication that documented evidence of FBI infiltration of the so-called "white supremacist" groups. Thus the media outlet drew parallels between the 6 January Capitol Siege and a botched kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Citing the FBI's affidavits, Revolver News underscored that the bureau used a lot of informants and agents in the “Whitmer Kidnapping Plot”.

"FBI infiltrators comprised, at the very least, 26 percent of the plotters. That is, at least five FBI operatives have been disclosed, against just 14 suspects indicted," the media outlet wrote, adding that many of those allegedly involved in the plot appear to belong to the "Three Percenters", one of the militia groups now blamed for breaching the Capitol building.

For his part, Greenwald cited earlier reports saying that Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has also served as an FBI informant in the past. According to the independent journalist there is nothing particularly new about the FBI's using informants and instigators in their operations. He does not rule out that the three key groups at the centre of the 1/6 investigation — the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters – were infiltrated by the FBI.

"What would be shocking and strange is not if the FBI had embedded informants and other infiltrators in the groups planning the January 6 Capitol riot," Greenwald wrote. "What would be shocking and strange — bizarre and inexplicable — is if the FBI did not have those groups under tight control."

However, what's worse, according to Greenwald, is that on some occasions the FBI create, design and fund apparent "plots" to use them as bait for mentally and emotionally unstable people. The independent journalist quoted a TEDTalk by Aaronson, which "reveal[ed] a disturbing FBI practice that breeds terrorist plots by exploiting Muslim-Americans with mental health problems". He also referred to a 2011 Mother Jones investigation, “The Informants,” which posed an unorthodox question as to whether the FBI is "busting terrorist plots – or leading them".

"Although people may not realise this, the FBI has a long history of using 'informants' that appear to be active participants, or even instigators of crimes," says Goodman. "Such agent provocateurs have been used on far more occasions than the public realises. I’ve personally spoken to one individual who has spent 18 years in prison and unequivocally states that he was 'set up' by an FBI informant."

Could QAnon be the FBI's Invention?

The highly disputed QAnon conspiracy could also be bait for unaware Trump supporters, according to the founder of Crowdsource the Truth.

"We still don’t know where this QAnon foolishness originated or who is behind it," Goodman says. "The United States allegedly possesses powerful cyber warfare defences. How could someone defy detection for years while releasing allegedly classified and potentially harmful information unless they were being allowed or directed to do so? It defies logic to think the QAnon movement was anything other than an entrapment effort created or approved of by the FBI. January 6th was the date that trap closed."

According to Goodman, this situation resembles nothing so much as a "honeypot" - a standard type of intelligence operation. 

"Something appealing is offered intended to attract, in this case, the least discerning, most naïve Trump supporters and turn them into an army of useful idiots as we saw on 6 January," the investigative journalist says. "After months of internet indoctrination, you might only need a handful of provocateurs on the ground shouting at people and provoking action. There were many such instigators visible throughout the crowd on 6 January."

Capitol Riot, Russiagate Hoax & Spygate

The version of the FBI's apparent failure to prevent the 6 January riots as well as that of the bureau's alleged involvement in the Capitol Siege plot fits into the intelligence community's long standing attempts to frame President Donald Trump and his aides in the so-called "Russiagate" for apparent political gains, notes Goodman. Smearing Trump's MAGA supporters as "domestic terrorists" could be part of this broader issue, according to him.  

It is no secret that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the author of the "dirty dossier" on Trump, was paid by both Democrats and the FBI for his job. The uncorroborated dossier was used by the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump's aide Carter Page. Furthermore, one of FBI employees knowingly altered data about Page to renew the warrant, while some other bureau employees failed to hand over records of Page's conversations with the bureau's informer Stefan Halper, which could potentially exonerate the Trump aide, to the FISA court.

​Similarly, the case of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn indicated that the FBI "edited" records of an interview with him apparently to implicate him. According to some GOP lawmakers and conservative observers, Obama administration officials were aware of the so-called "Spygate" and supposedly were in cahoots with intelligence agents behind it. In 2019 then-AG William Barr appointed US Attorney John Durham to get to the bottom of this. However, Durham has yet to release his conclusions on "the investigation into investigators".

"The effort to remove Donald Trump was so intense and it remains ongoing," says Goodman. "Loud whispers indicate that New York City District Attorney Cyrus Vance is preparing to indict Trump or at least members of the Trump Organisation. Yesterday the Trump Organisation announced it would sue the City of New York in a breach of contract claim directly tied to de Blasio’s allegation that Trump incited the January 6 riot. This may be a clever move by President Trump to force a court ruling on the evidence rather than allow a fake news court of public opinion."

Regardless of the US mainstream press effort to subject the issue to ridicule or label those who question the FBI's conduct during the Capitol riots as "conspiracy theorists", the dam is already broken and more and more questions are likely to emerge, the investigative journalist believes.

"The United States is in uncharted political waters right now," Goodman says. "Citizens who question the government or mainstream narratives are banned from social media and risk losing their jobs or social status. The recent past would seem to teach us that no matter how many inconvenient questions emerge, the woke in-crowd is fully prepared to plug the public’s ears and shout these questions down".