House Speaker Mike Johnson is releasing 40,000 of the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill taken on January 6. 

Tens of thousands of private individuals will be devoting a good part of their time analyzing these videos. 

There are several problems confronted by analysts. 

The Department of Justice has had almost three years to edit these videos.  The faces of private citizens will be blurred “to protect them from retaliation.” 

How does the DOJ distinguish private citizens from DOJ planted agitators?  The answer is they do not.  Private analysts will not be able to make that distinction due to the “blurring.” 

Also roughly 5% of the footage will be withheld because it contains sensitive security information.  Who determines what “sensitive security information” is?  Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provided Tucker Carlson with 41,000 hours of police and surveillance video.   “Sensitive security information” appears to be a fluid concept.

There are obviously some very explosive revelations in the unedited videos.  They are so “sensitive” that the FBI's Washington Field Office (WFO) refused the share them with their colleagues in the Boston Field Office.  Retired Supervisory Intelligence Analyst (SSA) George Hill of the Boston Field Office (BFO) testified that the Washington Field Office wanted Boston to investigate individuals who had attended the Washington demonstration on January 6.  The Boston SSA for Counterterrorism replied, “Happy to do it. Show us where they were inside the Capitol, and we’ll look into it.”  The WFO responded, “We can’t show you those videos unless you can tell us the exact time and place those individuals were inside the Capitol.”  The SSA responded back,  “Why can’t you show us – why can’t you just send us the – give us access to the 11,000 hours of video that’s available?”  The WHO explained “Because there may be’ – may be – ‘UCs,’ undercover officers, ‘or CHSes,’ confidential human sources, ‘on those videos whose identity we need to protect.”  Hill’s former supervisor, Special Agent-in-Charge Joseph Bonavolonta, confirmed Hill’s testimony that WFO asked BFO to investigate 140 people who attended a Republican political rally.

The WFO could not trust the FBI’s BFO with information that “may” reveal the identities of undercover officers. (UCs) and confidential human sources (CHSes).  The WFO misled the BFO because they were well aware that there were numerous FBI undercover assets at the rally.  In fact they claim the FBI lost count of how many paid informants were at Capitol. Steven D’Antuono, formerly in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office testified that his office was aware before the riot that some of their informants would attend the rally.  He claims he only learned afterwards that informants run by other field offices also were present, along with others who had participated of their own accord.  Paid informants came from as far away as Kansas City.  This informant was in communication with his FBI handler while he entered the Capitol.  When asked how many informants were in the crowd that day, D’Antuono said only “a handful.”

How large is a “handful”?  Former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund claims that, in addition to the paid informants, the FBI had at least 18 undercover agents in the crowd plus an estimated 20 from the Department of Homeland Security.  

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) claimed that busloads of FBI agents arrived in the Capitol. 

During a congressional hearing he stated, “These buses are nefarious in nature and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters.”  He estimated that there were over 200 agents embedded within the crowd.  For those who believe this is an unlikely scenario remember Scott Foval, former national field director of Americans United for Change, who said. “We’ve been busing people in to deal with you f—-ing assholes for 50 years, and we’re not going to stop now.”  

FBI agents undoubtedly participated in the January 6 protest, but did they instigate any of the violence?  We know from the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping hoax that FBI agents are capable of encouraging violence.  Some of those agents who famously “took a knee” in honor of BLM may have got carried away by the enthusiasm of the crowd.  They had been rewarded by the FBI Agents Association for their demonstration. 

Discrediting Trump supporters could only add to their status.  Was there a BLM and Antifa presence at the protest?  If not, they missed an excellent opportunity.  Dozens of Trump rallies had occurred with no violence.  BLM and Antifa cannot say the same.  

The FBI has devoted a large part of their budget tracking down potential threats.  Earlier this year they raided the home of a traditional Catholic family because their 15-year-old son had posted “offensive memes” online.  Jeremiah Rufini claims his son was “goaded” by the FBI to post offensive memes. 

The strong reaction to the FBIs anti-Catholic policy caused them to abandon this effort.  This was not an indication that the FBI was adopting a more moderate policy.  According to Newsweek the government’s fear of major civil unrest around the 2024 election caused them to create a new category of extremists: Donald Trump's army of MAGA followers.  Targeting tens of millions of Americans is going to require an increase in the FBI’s budget.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.  He is featured on the BBC's program "Things We Forgot to Remember:" Morgenthau Plan and Post-War Germany.

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