US intelligence investigating whether FBI involved in 2021 Capitol riot

WASHINGTON: The top US spy’s chief of staff late on Wednesday said the US intelligence community is investigating whether the FBI was involved in planning the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.

“We’re looking into it right now,” Joseph Kent, chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said during a Senate intelligence committee hearing on his nomination to head the US National Counterterrorism Centre.

He did not elaborate on which of the 18 US intelligence agencies is conducting the probe. Gabbard oversees the FBI’s intelligence functions. A US Justice Department watchdog report released in December debunked claims by far-right conspiracy theorists who falsely alleged that FBI operatives were secretly involved in the Capitol attack.

The report found there were 26 FBI informants in Washington on the day of the attack. But, it said, the FBI did not authorise any to enter the Capitol or engage in violence. Kent’s comments came in response to questions from Democratic Senator Mark Kelly about the attack by Trump supporters trying to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.

Trump falsely claimed he lost the contest due to widespread voting fraud. In January, he pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in the assault by a mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to overturn his election defeat.

Kelly asked Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA officer and staunch Trump loyalist, what evidence he had to back up a post on what is now the social media platform X that the FBI and US spy agencies were involved in planning the assault on Congress.

“We’ve already identified that there were multiple confidential human informants run by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that were present in the crowd that day, directing, removing barriers, those types of things,” Kent said.