You can't believe "just the news dot com" is a reputable source can you?
The documents don't mention or imply the officers were plainclothes, it's a lie, that number is regular agents deployed after violence had occurred.
The documents don't mention or imply the officers were plainclothes, it's a lie, that number is regular agents deployed after violence had occurred.
If you consider the response to the violence part of "the Jan 6 debacle", then yes, FBI agents were present.
The documents would NOT specify they were in "plainclothes" because the FBI doesn't wear uniforms, therefore everything would be "plainclothes" by definition. This is both common knowledge but I can personally confirm from my time there. You can dislike the characterization but it is correct.
The more interesting questions:
- Since the FBI primarily an investigative body (in the name) and these were NOT tacteams providing armed support, what was their purpose?
- Further, why did it take almost 5 years for the FBI to identify the man placing the pipebombs? According to reports, no new evidence came to light.
Moving on to the implication and my question:
> Since the FBI primarily an investigative body (in the name) and these were NOT tacteams providing armed support, what was their purpose?
We DO deserve an explanation to that one and unfortunately, "they showed up to address the violence" doesn't resolve this because - as noted - they are NOT uniformed. Therefore, a Special Agent drawing their weapon looks like a random civilian which would only increase the chaos and danger for everyone.
They're not even particularly useful for crowd control because a) they're not uniformed and b) as an Executive agency, they don't have authority in the Capital unless US Capital Police authorizes it.. though that may take the Sergeant at Arms or the Speaker specifically, I haven't reviewed that in quite a while.
Finally, since the FBI has a multi-decade history of instigating issues to be able to stop them, we SHOULD be skeptical until we get a complete and documented explanation.