Conspicuous Omission Noted in DoJ OIG Jan. 6 Report

Failure to canvass field offices reminiscent of same failure just before Sept. 11, 2001.

The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General recently published a report titled A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Handling of Its Confidential Human Sources and Intelligence Collection Efforts in the Lead Up to the January 6, 2021 Electoral Certification.

Much of the media commentary has focused on the 26 Confidential Human Sources (CHS), 4 of whom entered the Capitol during the riot, while 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol.

Based on the reporting I’ve seen thus far, I am not sure if evidence has emerged that these 17 paid informants also acted as agents provocateurs, exhorting members of the crowd to enter the restricted area and Capitol.

While I believe the precise activities of these Confidential Human Sources should be thoroughly investigated, what really caught my eye is the following from the report’s Summary of Findings.

While the FBI undertook significant efforts to identify domestic terrorism subjects who planned to travel to the Capital region on January 6 and to prepare to support its law enforcement partners on January 6 if needed, we also determined that the FBI did not take a step that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations in advance of January 6.

Specifically, the FBI did not canvass its field offices in advance of January 6, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS reporting, about potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification. Several FBI officials told the OIG that it is common practice for the FBI to ask field offices to canvass their sources for information—in advance of a large event, such as the Inauguration, the Super Bowl, or other events with significant attendance and to report that information to the requesting field office, which, in this instance, would have been the WFO.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who was Associate Deputy Director at the time, described the lack of a canvass prior to January 6 as a “basic step that was missed,” and told the OIG that he would have expected a formal canvassing of sources to have occurred, through the issuance of an intelligence collection product, because it would have been the most thorough approach to understanding the threat picture prior to January 6. We determined that, despite some discussions about issuing a formal intelligence collection product specific to both the January 6 Electoral Certification and the January 20 Inauguration, the FBI only issued an intelligence collection product for the Inauguration.

This reminds me of the critical period between August 6, 2001—when President George W. Bush received a Presidential Daily Brief titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”—and Sept. 11, 2001, when the strike occurred.

As the August 6, 2001 brief noted:

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time [U.S. missile strikes in Afghanistan in 1998] indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related.

What remains extraordinarily strange about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is that no one serving in a command capacity within the FBI took any action to neutralize the plot based on field agent reporting on the suspicious activities of the 19 hijackers, many of who were being observed by FBI field agents long before the attacks took place.

Same with the Curtis Culwell Center attack in Garland, Texas in 2015, when an undercover FBI agent encouraged shooters, followed them to the attack site, and didn't stop them. For more on this bizarre incident, see my post "Tear Up Texas": FBI Encouraged a 2015 Shooting & Did Nothing to Stop It.

And people wonder why guys like me don’t trust the FBI!

Click on image below to see DoJ/OIG report.

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