On September 26, 2025, former President Donald Trump reignited controversy around the January 6 Capitol riot by posting a link to an article from the right-wing outlet Just the News and labeling the event a “Radical Left Democrat Scam.” Trump’s post, echoing familiar conspiracy theories, implied that the FBI had orchestrated the violence by embedding agents among the rioters to entrap his supporters. But a closer look at the facts—and the documents at the heart of this latest political firestorm—tells a different story, one that highlights the ongoing battle over truth and narrative in American politics.
The spark for this latest round of accusations came from the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on January 6, which announced on X (formerly Twitter) that the FBI had “finally” revealed the deployment of 276 agents to the Capitol on January 6, 2021. This announcement was quickly seized upon by Trump and his allies as supposed evidence of a deep-state plot. Kari Lake, a failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate, amplified Trump’s post, claiming, “They staged a riot on January 6 to frame patriotic Americans and cover-up a stolen election. Justice is coming.” According to reporting from The New Republic, such assertions have been a recurring theme among Trump’s supporters, despite a lack of substantiating evidence.
But what do the documents actually show? An after-action report, cited by Just the News and later scrutinized by fact-checkers at outlets like The Blaze, confirms that the FBI deployed agents in response to the breach of the Capitol, not before it. The agents—numbering 274 according to the report—were sent to address the rapidly deteriorating situation after rioters had already stormed the building. Their mission was to respond to the chaos, including reports of pipe bombs and a suspicious red truck believed to contain explosives. The report itself makes no mention of agents being undercover or embedded within the crowd prior to the breach. In fact, the words “plainclothes” and “undercover” are entirely absent from the document, a detail confirmed by both The Blaze and Lead Stories in their independent reviews.
What the after-action report does contain are complaints from FBI agents about poor planning and a sense that they had been made “pawns in a political war.” Many agents, according to Just the News, felt unprepared and unsafe, having been deployed in plainclothes and without proper protective gear. However, these complaints centered on the execution and internal politics of the bureau’s response—not on any suggestion that the FBI orchestrated the riot or entrapped Trump supporters. As Lead Stories notes, “The agents were not undercover nor were they embedded in the crowd.”
Further undermining the conspiracy theory is the December 2024 report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). This comprehensive review, as cited by The Blaze and The New Republic, found no evidence that the FBI had undercover employees in the protest crowds or at the Capitol on January 6. The report states unequivocally: “We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6.”
The OIG report also highlights that FBI policy does not permit the deployment of undercover employees at First Amendment-protected events without specific investigative authority. In fact, a request from one FBI office to have an undercover employee engage in investigative activity on January 6 was denied by the Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division Assistant Special Agent in Charge, according to the OIG. Surveillance activities were limited to monitoring a “DT subject” (domestic terrorism subject) traveling to Washington, D.C., but those agents did not enter the city itself.
Despite these clear findings, the narrative of a government-orchestrated riot persists in some corners of the right-wing media ecosystem. As The New Republic points out, Republicans have repeatedly revived this conspiracy theory, often based on misreadings or deliberate misrepresentations of official documents. The notion that the FBI “secretly” deployed plainclothes agents is not only unsupported by the evidence but directly contradicted by the very documents cited by proponents of the theory. “Republicans have provided no evidence that those working with law enforcement were involved in planning the deadly riot, or instigating violence that day,” The New Republic reports.
In July 2023, Trump had already shared a meme claiming, “JANUARY 6 WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE DAY THE GOVERNMENT STAGED A RIOT TO COVER UP THE FACT THAT THEY CERTIFIED A FRAUDULENT ELECTION.” This rhetoric, while powerful to his base, is not borne out by the facts. Had the FBI acknowledged the presence of 274 undercover agents embedded in the crowd, as some headlines have suggested, it would have been front-page news across the country. Yet, as Lead Stories notes, “A Google search found no actual news reports that the FBI had made any such acknowledgement.”
So why does this theory persist? The answer lies in the intersection of political narrative, media amplification, and public distrust. Trump’s framing of the after-action report as proof of a “scam” fits neatly into the MAGA movement’s broader skepticism of federal law enforcement and the so-called “deep state.” For many of his supporters, the details of the actual documents matter less than the story they want to believe. The feedback from FBI agents about poor planning and internal politics has been twisted into a narrative of entrapment and conspiracy, despite the lack of any supporting evidence.
Meanwhile, mainstream and fact-checking outlets continue to push back against these claims. Their reviews of the documents are clear: the FBI’s presence at the Capitol on January 6 was a response to an unprecedented emergency, not part of a premeditated plot. “The agents were responding to rioters and incidents including pipe bombs and a suspicious red truck, not inciting the riot,” reports The New Republic. The Department of Justice’s OIG report, the after-action review, and the absence of credible news coverage all point to the same conclusion.
This ongoing battle over the narrative of January 6 reveals much about the current state of American politics. The facts are out there, plain as day, for those willing to look. But as the amplification of conspiracy theories continues, the challenge remains: how to ensure that truth can cut through the noise. For now, the documents speak for themselves, even if many choose not to listen.
