A former assistant FBI director has told lawmakers that the agency had so many paid informants at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 that it lost track and had to perform an audit, according to the NY Post's Miranda Devine.
Steven D'Antuono, formerly in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, told the House Judiciary Committee in closed-door testimony that while his field office knew some of their informants would be at Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally across town, informants from other field offices were present at the Capitol that day, as well as other informants who had participated on their own accord.
One fed informant was on the phone with his handler as he breached the Capitol.
The fed-fest was so overwhelming that the Washington field office had to ask FBI headquarters to " do a poll or put out something to people saying w[ere] any CHSs involved," in order to figure out the scale of the agency's spying (and whatnot) at the event, according to D'Antuono.
"We started getting responses back" from FBI headquarters, which he said helped identify which field offices had confidential informants in the crowd.
One paid informant from the Kansas City field office was at the Capitol as the crowd surged inside and allegedly was in communication with his FBI handler, “while they were in the crowd, I think, saying that they were going in,” according to the former bureau brass.
“They were trying to stop some of the action happening and they left or whatnot.”
Asked how many informants the audit discovered were in the crowd that day, D’Antuono would only say “a handful”. -NY Post
According to the Post, citing DOJ stats, the FBI spends around $42 million per year in payments to its Confidential Human Sources (like their mole in Burisma who said the Bidens coerced owner Mykola Zlochevsky into a $10 million bribe for political cover?).
On Tuesday, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (D-OH) said D'Antuono's testimony was "extremely concerning," and 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."
"These revelations reinforce existing concerns, identified by Special Counsel [John] Durham, about the FBI’s use of, and payment to, CHSs who have fabricated evidence and misrepresented information.
"The Justice Department Inspector General also identified critical problems in the FBI’s CHS program," Jordan's letter continues. "including the FBI’s failure to fully vet CHSs and the FBI’s willingness to ignore red flags that would call into question an informant’s reliability."
Jordan has asked Wray to provide a “substantive briefing” on how the FBI used paid informants on Jan. 6, 2021, and “any specific guidelines or admonishments that were provided to FBI CHSs prior to deploying”.
Wray has also been asked to provide all debriefing documents received from Capitol riot informants.
Jordan also wants source reporting documentation relating to former British spy Christopher Steele, who was responsible for a now-notorious “dossier of false allegations about the Trump-Russia hoax.”
The number of FBI informants present during the Capitol riot has long been a controversial topic at trials of the hundreds of defendants apprehended since that day. -NY Post
According to one of the "Proud Boys," the FBI had as many as eight informants spying on their organization alone, at least one of whom was with them at the Capitol that day, while former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund has said that the agency had at least 18 undercover agents in the crowd in addition to the paid informants, and estimated that at least 20 from the Department of Homeland Security were also present.
"Hello fellow insurrectionists!"
