It has now been confirmed that at least twenty FBI and ATF agents were embedded around the capitol building on January 6, according to court documents related to a criminal case that is proceeding in federal court.
The revelation about the number of FBI and ATF agents was made in a footnote to a motion to dismiss submitted by the defense in United States v. Thomas Caldwell (U.S. v. Elmer Stewart Rhodes). It is based on witness testimony, un-Mirandized statements, and multiple 302s:
Literally tens of thousands of private communications within the Oath Keepers organization have been provided, including encrypted messages specifically addressing preparations for J6. Additionally, multiple 302s, witness statements, un-Mirandized statements, etc. from multiple Oath Keeper related witnesses and defendants have been reviewed. At least 20 FBI and ATF assets were embedded around the Capitol on J6. Additionally, discovery proves that the Oath Keepers were being monitored and recorded prior to J6.
The motion to dismiss contains no further information on the “20 FBI and ATF assets,” but it is a figure that confirms there were more federal agents embedded at the capitol on January 6 than previously known. The admission into court of the factual statement raises disturbing questions about the FBI’s infiltration of far-right groups that showed up on January 6 to sow chaos and confusion during a Donald Trump speaking event.
It also further corroborates that the FBI were well aware of far-right groups’ plans for January 6, and at a minimum, allowed the groups to carry out an operation that has since been characterized as a ‘coup’ attempt or a plot to ‘overthrow the government.’
As Tucker Carlson noted in his interview with Revolver editor Darren Beattie last June, there is the matter of certain unindicted co-conspirators from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. The FBI’s odd treatment of “Person Two” and “Person Three” referenced in the indictment of Thomas Caldwell is reviewed in a Revolver piece from last June.
The Revolver piece draws a bright red line between the activities of ‘Person Two’ and ‘Person Three’ and similarities with the Whitmer kidnapping plot case, which led initially to two acquittals for reasons of ‘entrapment.’ The Whitmer kidnapping case is currently in retrial.
“For those unfamiliar, Thomas Caldwell is a 65-year-old from Virginia and an alleged member of the Oath Keepers, which the DOJ refers to as a ‘paramilitary’ or ‘militia’ group,” Revolver notes. “The Caldwell case served as one of the first major indictments following the January 6 incident.”
It should be noted that Caldwell denies that he is a member of the Oath Keepers, as he told The Epoch Times in March. Caldwell is facing “seditious conspiracy and other charges,” according to a new case filed in January 2022 that also encompasses earlier charges.
The Department of Justice provided an overview of the case in a January 2021 release:
Jessica Marie Watkins, 38, and Donovan Ray Crowl, 50, both of Champaign County, Ohio; and Thomas Caldwell, 65, of Clarke County, Virginia, were indicted today in federal court in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and unlawful entry on restricted building or grounds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1512, 1361, and 1752. Watkins and Crowl were arrested on Jan. 18; Caldwell was arrested on Jan. 19. All three individuals originally were charged by criminal complaint. The maximum penalty for Obstructing an Official Proceeding is a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
According to the charging documents, Watkins, Crowl, and Caldwell communicated with each another in advance of the Jan. 6, 2021, incursion on the U.S. Capitol and coordinated their attack. Watkins, Crowl, and Caldwell are all affiliated with the Oath Keepers, while Watkins and Crowl are also members of the Ohio State Regular Militia. Watkins claimed to be a commanding officer within the Ohio State Regular Militia in a social media post.
“A careful read of the indictment against Caldwell reveals that a certain ‘Person Two’ was a key co-conspirator alongside Caldwell in nearly every dimension relevant to the charges in question,” Revolver notes in the lengthy exclusive.
“Person Two planned logistics with Caldwell days in advance of 1/6, stayed in the same hotel room for days together, and when Caldwell allegedly ‘stormed the barricades‘ into restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol, Person Two is alleged to have ‘stormed the barricades’ right beside him,” the report adds.
“Even more suspicious than Person 2 described above is Person 3, who is yet another unindicted co-conspirator in the Caldwell indictment,” Revolver continues. “Note that in the Michigan Plot described in the previous section, both the main van driver and explosives supplier were undercover FBI operatives.”
“Here, the Oath Keepers’ main bus driver and supposed explosives supplier remains an unindicted co-conspirator,” the story adds before providing documentation of the claims. “That person is simply listed as ‘Person 3’ in the complaints.”
The Caldwell case is far from an outlier in terms of raising questions about the FBI’s handling of far-right extremists who allegedly wanted to target the capitol on January 6.
A New York Times report from September also revealed that an FBI embedded an undercover agent to monitor the activities of the Proud Boys. The text messages exchanged during the January 6 event exculpate Donald Trump from having knowledge of the groups’ activities.
An FBI agent was communicating with a Proud Boys informant, who confirmed there was no centralized plot to overturn the 2020 election results based on ‘orders’ from Donald Trump.
As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting, toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member of the far-right group was busy texting a real-time account of the march.
The recipient was his F.B.I. handler.
In the middle of an unfolding melee that shook a pillar of American democracy — the peaceful transfer of power — the bureau had an informant in the crowd, providing an inside glimpse of the action, according to confidential records obtained by The New York Times. In the informant’s version of events, the Proud Boys, famous for their street fights, were largely following a pro-Trump mob consumed by a herd mentality rather than carrying out any type of preplanned attack.
The Times provides details of how the FBI agent was working one extremist group during the developing Capitol riot:
After meeting his fellow Proud Boys at the Washington Monument that morning, the informant described his path to the Capitol grounds where he saw barriers knocked down and Trump supporters streaming into the building, the records show. At one point, his handler appeared not to grasp that the building had been breached, the records show, and asked the informant to keep him in the loop — especially if there was any violence…
But the records, and information from two people familiar with the matter, suggest that federal law enforcement had a far greater visibility into the assault on the Capitol, even as it was taking place, than was previously known.
At the same time, the new information is likely to complicate the government’s efforts to prove the high-profile conspiracy charges it has brought against several members of the Proud Boys.
The FBI was thus well aware of the Oath Keepers’ and Proud Boys’ communications and activities leading up to January 6, but again, at a minimum, undertook no aggressive action to stop their attack on the capitol from moving forward.
On January 3, 2022, the FBI had ‘secret commandos’ with shoot-to-kill authority training for a contingency such as the Capitol Riots days ahead of the event. Newsweek reported on this in January:
On Sunday, January 3, the heads of a half-dozen elite government special operations teams met in Quantico, Virginia, to go over potential threats, contingencies, and plans for the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. The meeting, and the subsequent deployment of these shadowy commandos on January 6, has never before been revealed.
The report lists the FBI assets that were preparing for the potential of an emergency at the convening of the Electoral College:
The contingency units meeting on January 3 included the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, the FBI’s national “Render Safe” team, an FBI SWAT team from the Baltimore Field Office, Special Response Teams from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group.
Furthermore, despite all of the FBI’s activities, a Reuters report from August 2021 refutes that there was any ‘centrally coordinated’ plot to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.
“The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials,” Reuters reported.
It turns out, the FBI is highly selective about when the bureau will and will not take aggressive action. If far-right extremists are planning to carry out an attempted ‘coup’ against the U.S. government, it will simply allow the entire plot to unfold without taking the slightest pre-emptive action or even warning other federal agencies to enhance security.
But if a former president takes documents that he declassified to his office in Mar-a-Lago, and the National Archives demands that he returns them after he leaves office, then the FBI will send thirty agents to raid everything at his home, ransacking rooms and even the former First Lady’s wardrobe, seizing everything from privileged documents to passports, in an invasive fishing expedition to dig up some rarely charged, esoteric violation to charge him with.
If there is any “justice” left at the Department of Justice, it will start providing the American people with real explanations about the FBI’s politicized actions — and fast.
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