By the AFP Staff
Over the past two years, the mainstream media and the Deep State have led Americans to believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of violent, crazed rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in berserker fashion at the behest of former President Donald Trump, hunting down senators and congressmen before attempting to stop legislators from carrying out their sacred duty to certify the 2020 national election results.
What is left out of this narrative, however, constitutes the biggest revelation of 2022: U.S. law enforcement—most notably the FBI—had more than a dozen informants in the key groups that marched on the Capitol that day, including six operatives inside the group known as the OathKeepers, whose leader, Stewart Rhodes, was just convicted of seditious conspiracy.
For those who don’t know, seditious conspiracy is a crime which involves plotting against the authority of the state. A more detailed explanation can be found on pages 6-7 in this week’s issue by Maryland attorney Glenn Allen, which details the absurdity of the charges filed against Rhodes and one other member of the OathKeepers, a conservative organization made up of former law enforcement officers and military men that seeks to preserve the Constitution of the United States.
Even though Rhodes never set foot on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol building, a jury in Washington, D.C. still found him guilty of this crime based on, among other things, videos that showed him legally purchasing firearms and storing them in Virginia.
Central to his prosecution was the fact that the FBI had at least six informants among Rhodes and other members of OathKeepers, who supposedly had only been documenting everything the OathKeepers were saying and doing and then reporting those details back to their FBI handlers.
Americans should be highly skeptical of FBI claims, especially since revelations concerning FBI involvement in another high-profile case—the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—came to light earlier this year.
For those who don’t remember, last April, a Michigan judge excoriated FBI officials for the role they played in driving the plot to kidnap the governor. In that case, defense attorneys for a group of men accused of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer revealed that the FBI had at least 12 informants involved in the conspiracy and that at least one of them had to actually talk the real suspects into the scheme.
According to court filings, one FBI informant was paid over $50,000 in one year to get close to the group. Other informants drove the men around, conducted surveillance on the governor, showed them how to build bombs, and even guided them on the best methods to bypass Whitmer’s security detail.
That case was initially thrown out by a judge in April, but prosecutors went after several of the men again in August on charges of conspiracy. Two of the men were found guilty, and now, shamelessly, prosecutors are demanding they be sent away to prison for life.
Christopher Gibbons, the defense attorney for Adam Fox, one of the two convicted men, told the jury on Aug. 18, “It kind of shows who’s in charge and who’s running the program. Certainly, it’s not Adam Fox making those decisions. … [FBI informants] drove the truck, and unfortunately for my client, as hapless as he is, he happened to be the one bouncing in the passenger seat.”
AT LEAST A DOZEN INFORMANTS
In regard to Jan. 6, this newspaper has reported in-depth on the numerous confirmed and suspected informants who were orbiting key groups involved in the protest. By some estimates, more than a dozen operatives have been identified as acting in some capacity with demonstrators on that day.
One of the most notorious, Ray Epps, for instance, was filmed on two occasions directing protesters to break down barriers and storm the Capitol.
In one video, after Epps makes an impassioned plea to the men and women around him that they need to bust into the Capitol, several individuals around Epps can be heard shouting “Fed!” over and over again as others yell and jeer.
In a congressional hearing on Oct. 21, 2021, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland about Epps, saying, “I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. Can you tell us, without talking about particular incidents or particular videos, how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on Jan. 6, whether they agitated to go into the Capitol, and if any of them did?”
In response, Garland managed to stutter out, “So I’m not going to violate this norm of, uh, of, of, of, the rule of law. I’m not going to comment on an investigation that’s ongoing.”
And that is not all.
In November, The New York Times revealed that the FBI had as many as eight informants inside another conservative organization, the Proud Boys. According to the Times, defense attorneys for five members of the Proud Boys who face conspiracy charges for their roles in Jan. 6 said in court filings that U.S. prosecutors are withholding hundreds of pages of documents that could be favorable to their clients, including information on at least eight FBI informants operating inside the Proud Boys.
Multiple newspapers had already reported that a member of the Proud Boys, who was an FBI informant, was present inside the Capitol when the riot broke out.
As time goes by, more information leaks out on how the FBI has been a driving force in multiple plots from terrorism cases to Jan. 6—a damning discovery considering the FBI brands itself as the top law enforcement agency in the U.S.
AFP has always been a strong supporter of honest law enforcement, but, after all of these sordid revelations, maybe it is time to join the calls to once and for all defund the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
