(Headline USA) Republicans grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray during a congressional hearing this week over whether the agency played a role in the Jan. 6 Capitol uprising following a report that FBI informants were involved in far-Right organizations in the months leading up to the protests.
The New York Times revealed last month that the FBI had at least eight informants inside the Proud Boys in the months leading up to Jan. 6, raising questions about what the FBI knew before the riot broke out and whether it did anything to stop it, or even facilitate it.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., asked Wray directly whether the FBI had “confidential human sources embedded within the January 6 protests.” Wray deflected, saying he must be “very careful about what I can say … about when and where we do and do not use confidential human sources.”
“But to the extent there is the suggestion that the FBI’s confidential human sources or FBI employees in some way instigated or orchestrated Jan. 6th, that’s categorically false,” Wray continued.
Higgins continued to press Wray, asking him whether the FBI sent agents to the riot “dressed as Trump supporters … prior to the doors being opened.”
Wray didn’t say yes or no, instead claiming that he has “to be very careful.”
“It should be a no!” Higgins responded. “Can you not tell the American people ‘No, we did not have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters positioned inside the Capitol on January 6?’”
This isn’t the first time Wray has denied the FBI’s alleged role in the riot. In a March 2021 congressional hearing, he shot down allegations that FBI agents instigated Trump supporters to storm the Capitol, claiming he had seen no evidence to support that claim.
“We have not seen evidence of that, at this stage, certainly,” he said.
