Reviewing FBI Emails Involving January 6th
A bad way to spend a Saturday
(Note: This full-length article is too large for e-mail, so make sure you view this from the webpage to see everything!)
I decided to spend tonight going through the FBI’s most recent FOIA drop (PDF link) of emails surrounding the events of January 6, 2021. Though a frustrating amount of the 300 pages are redacted, I was still able to find some very interesting tidbits among the scraps.
First, I want to apologize for the quality of these pictures. Many of the emails had to be magnified to almost 200% just to be able to read them. (That’s not shady at all, FBI!) You can click on any picture here to enlarge it and hopefully read it a little better. (This means no picture source links, but in this case all pictures are from the FOIA drop. I can help you track them down if you like.)
Hard-to-read pictures aside, the first interesting thing that we find in these emails is exactly what we expect to find: In the days leading up to January 6th, the FBI was coordinating with multiple groups to handle the anticipated protests of that day. This email about January 6th was sent on December 30th and mentions a ‘next update’ on January 5th — leading me to believe this sort of ‘touch-base’ email was a very common thing, likely weekly.
With so many updates, it’s no surprise the FBI had all sorts of information about the upcoming protests, including maps of planned demonstrations. (Reminder that Metro PD had similar intelligence)
The agency also knew about planned traffic closures for January 6th:
In this e-mail, plans for handling January 6th were so important they interrupted the weekend — a cardinal sin in government work:
This all heavily runs against the narrative that the FBI was caught flat-footed by the protests of January 6th — a story which only made sense if the FBI was completely inept, not just corrupt. Instead, we see that the FBI had been preparing for the event for weeks, if not months.
When it comes to intelligence about threats, in this next set of emails we see that by January 3rd (at the latest), the FBI was tracking specific threats to law enforcement that were to occur on January 6th:
These emails provide backup for Steven Sund’s account stating the FBI had intelligence suggesting there would be violence during the January 6th protests. (Intelligence that Sund says was not shared with him.) It’s also important to remember this intelligence was arriving in the days just before acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller sent out this memo:
Without my subsequent, personal authorization, the DCNG is not authorized the following:
To be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets, and body armor.
To interact physically with protestors, except when necessary in self-defense or defense of others, consistent with the DCNG Rules for the Use of Force.
To employ any riot control agents.
To share equipment with law enforcement agencies.
To use Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets or to conduct ISR or Incident, Awareness, and Assessment activities.
To employ helicopters or any other air assets.
To conduct searches, seizures, arrests, or other similar direct law enforcement activity.
Why would you be disarming National Guard troops if you’re receiving threats of violence to law enforcement officers on January 6th? For that matter, why were additional troops denied in the days leading up to the protest? Does the Secretary of Defense not talk to the FBI? Is THAT story supposed to make us feel better?
Even the emails from January 6th itself show that the FBI was monitoring the situation long before it got rowdy:
Two hours later, another SITREP. This one with a very curious addition:
Who is on Capitol Complex Grounds in orange hats starting at 11:15? If only we had access to the January 6th tapes — as promised by Kevin McCarthy — we could figure this mystery out by Monday morning! (Washington Generals theme music here.)
Curiously, on this email that acknowledges the Capitol police have requested FBI SWAT assistance, the TIME THE EMAIL WAS SENT is redacted. It’s as if they don’t want it getting out how early the Capitol Police asked for assistance! (Remember the story is that TRUMP needed to ‘do more’ on 1/6 — it would be a very bad look if the people IN CHARGE OF SECURITY were doing nothing…….)
If you need a second to double-check to see if times on the other emails are redacted, go ahead and take it now. I’ll wait.
*big stretch while waiting*
Back? And you say all the times are clear as day except this one? Yep, I thought it was pretty fucking weird, myself! Maybe not QUITE as weird as this, however:
That’s some serious shades of comedian Brian Regan trying to downplay his brother’s broken arm:
The hard part was being the kid that got sent in first to calm Mom down before you dragged in the actual banged up brother. So you'd have to run in, 'Hey, Mom, everything's fine. I just wanted to run in at full speed and say hi. And OK, so, you know Kevin? Of course. Well, you know how his right arm - usually it would bend like that? It's not bending like that right now. And it's no big deal because we already looked at it. But we were thinking, since you said that you had to go get milk later anyway, then we were all thinking if, when you go, you just might want to take him to the hospital? And if you get peanut butter, get smooth.'
“No big deal, but FYI protestors are in the Capitol, so you might wanna activate those National Guard troops in 3 1/2 hours.”
Further in my search, I DID come across another group of emails that had the ENTIRE date/time redacted. From this language, it sure sounds like the FBI had multiple operations in multiple cities tracking multiple people BEFORE January 6th — and very possibly before protestors even headed to DC:
How is the FBI caught flat-footed by January 6th if they’re actively tracking and ‘mitigating’ threats beforehand? Answer: They’re not.
Interestingly, even the initial reports of the incident laid down the foundation of the preferred narrative, tying the breach of the Capitol in with Trump supporters who listened to his speech.
Weird that the report glosses over the time between 11:30 and 2:30 when the first ‘breaches’ of the Capitol Perimeter were closer to 1 PM — before Trump’s speech was even over. Once again, it’s as if the narrative was set before the events even occurred….
At this point, every piece of evidence that we get about January 6th raises more questions than it answers. And with Joe Biden’s Department of Justice attempting to arrest his chief political rival because of the events of that day, we ALL deserve to know EXACTLY what went down.
Unredact the emails (all of them). Release the videos (all of them). Let Americans see what REALLY happened on January 6th, 2021 so that we can make an informed decision on November 5th, 2024.
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Apologies for editing errors -- it's late!
Saying it again: you don't need to have conspiracies and plans and orchestrated events, you just need to have planning ready as to how to utilise them when suitable events are about to happen.
FBI collects information pointing to a protest with potential for rioting. Someone who can give an informal order instructs someone inside the FBI to let it run, all framed in read-between-the-lines neutral language like "In order not to aggravate emotions among protesters, officers are to..." and so on.
All neat, all legal.
Thanks for staying with this.