Attorney General Merrick Garland testified to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that he had no personal knowledge that any undercover FBI agents or assets were present at the Capitol on Jan. 5, 2021, or the day after.
Mr. Garland’s testimony came a day after a former top FBI official testified that numerous confidential human sources were at the Capitol on the day it was breached.
Rep. Thomas Massie, who has been asking Mr. Garland for two years about information on the FBI’s activity during the Jan. 6 attack, grilled him on how many agents and assets were agitating within the crowd and how many entered the Capitol.
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Mr. Garland said.
“You don’t know how many there were or there were none,” Mr. Massie said.
“I don’t know the answer to either of those questions. If there were any. I don’t know how many or whether there are any,” Mr. Garland said.
Mr. Massie, Kentucky Republican, accused Mr. Garland of perjuring himself: “You don’t know that there were any? You want to say that again?”
“I have no personal knowledge of this matter,” Mr. Garland said.
Mr. Massie shot back, “You’ve had two years to find out, and by the way that was in reference to Ray Epps, and yesterday you indicted him. Isn’t that a wonderful coincidence?”
He added, “On a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, you’re sending grandmas to prison. You’re putting people away for 20 years for merely filming. Some people weren’t even there yet. You got the guy on video. He’s saying go into the Capitol.”
Mr. Epps, who some on the right accuse of being a government informant, was charged Tuesday on a single count of disorderly conduct for his role in the Capitol riot.
Prosecutors accused Mr. Epps of disrupting the orderly conduct of government business by entering a restricted area on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.
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Mr. Epps’ lawyer Michael Teter, who is spearheading a defamation case against Fox News over its reports about his client, said from the very moment that Mr. Epps learned the FBI sought to identify him “he cooperated and has taken responsibility for his actions.”
The Judiciary Committee on Tuesday interviewed Steven D’Antuono, former assistant director in charge of the Washington field office, who said his branch learned after the 2021 demonstration that confidential sources from other field offices were in attendance and that other informants participated on their own accord.
When asked by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, whether any known or unknown confidential human sources were at the protest, Mr. D’Antuono said, “Well, I think they were both.”
Mr. Jordan responded, “So, you now know that there were CHSes that the FBI knew ahead of time were going to be here on Jan. 6 and that there were also some unknown CHSes who, on their own accord, decided to come here on Jan. 6?”
Mr. D’Antuono replied, “That is my belief, yeah.”
He added that one particular source he remembered “was the Kansas City CHS that I believe the case agent knew he was coming, because I think he told them, if I recall.”
The FBI refused to comment.
Mr. Jordan this week sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray reiterating the panel’s Nov. 30 requests for documents and information about the FBI’s management of its CHS program and how the FBI handles informants.
“This new information is extremely concerning. It suggests that the FBI cannot adequately track the activities and operations of its informants, and that it lost control of its CHSs present at the Capitol on January 6,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
He noted that the Justice Department inspector general also identified critical problems in the FBI’s CHS program.
This included the FBI’s failure to thoroughly “vet CHSs and the FBI’s willingness to ignore red flags that would call into question an informant’s reliability.”
The Washington Times reported in July that a whistleblower FBI agent told the committee that Deputy Director Paul Abbate opposed any public acknowledgment of at least 25 FBI confidential human sources or informants involved in the riots.
According to the whistleblower, Mr. Abbate notified one or more of his subordinates that confidential human sources should not be named, in part because some informants were too problematic or embarrassing to have their existence made known to the public.
In May, George Hill, a whistleblower from the FBI‘s Boston field office, testified before the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that agents in Washington refused to share hours of video from the Capitol protest with other offices.
According to Mr. Hill, agents in Washington feared there “may be” undercover officers or confidential human sources on the footage, which would risk compromising their identities.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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