U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at Save America Rally on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington on January 6, 2021 Photo by Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images).
A report released Thursday by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz took stock of how the FBI handled informants and intelligence-gathering in preparation of Jan. 6, 2021.
The long-awaited 88-page report is shy on bombshell revelations but mentions President-elect Donald Trump some 29 separate times.
Most of those references to the 47th president — all of which are related to the final days and weeks when he served as the 45th president — come in the context of failed hopes by far-right militia groups to attract Trump’s attention and direct support for their plans.
One section of the document, however, shows how the FBI discussed then-president Trump’s planned speech at the Ellipse that fateful day.
That morning, Trump headlined the “Stop the Steal” rally, which was held at the park located just south of the White House.
During his hour-long speech, Trump fancifully complained that his nonexistent “election victory” was being “stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats” and implored congressional Republicans to “stand strong for integrity of our elections.”
During one highly relevant part of the speech, Trump said: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
But in late December, the FBI was not yet aware Trump would speak — and, in fact, believed the opposite, according to the OIG report.
On Dec. 29, then-FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Steven D’Antuono had a phone call with the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia about Jan. 6.
The report documents an email sent the next day about that call:
[I]t was noted that there had been an increase in hotel reservations at several local hotels around the January 6 time period, there was an anticipated increase in usage at certain subway stations, the names of groups that planned to attend were discussed, and that several permits had been issued for different organizations for events at Freedom Plaza and the Capitol. The email also stated that attendance was expected to be large because President Trump had “discussed and promoted it” but that it “[did] not appear at this time that [the President] or the family was invited to these events or will attend.”
Later, of course, it became clear Trump would attend — because he announced that he would “be there” in a post on the social media site then-known as Twitter, the report notes. The FBI was apparently not concerned about what Trump would say at the rally — but expressed amorphous concerns about his basic presence as a speaker.
The document explains:
D’Antuono told the OIG that as the event got closer, he and others, including Bowdich, “started getting the feeling…[January 6] might be a little different.” D’Antuono said that the feeling was not based on any intelligence in particular, but on a number of factors, including the angry rhetoric about the election results and the fact that President Trump would be speaking at the Ellipse, as well as the [domestic terrorism] subjects who were traveling and the crowd size. D’Antuono told the OIG that he did not recall a concern about President Trump’s speaking role at the Ellipse coming up in his conversations with [then-FBI Deputy Director David] Bowdich in the lead-up to January 6 but that it was “definitely something” he and his executive management team discussed.
“According to D’Antuono, concerns about the President speaking also ‘went into the calculus’ as to how the FBI changed its posture as the event drew closer,” the report goes on.
The report then clarifies that other FBI agents were concerned about what Trump’s attendance would mean for crowd size.
The [Washington Field Office] Intelligence [Special Agent in Charge] told the OIG that she did not recall any discussions about concerns about what President Trump might say on January 6, but she said that upon learning that he would be speaking, she recalled thinking that his speaking would increase the crowd size and could affect “how [those in the crowd] would respond to him.” She said that she recalled thinking, “We got to be ready for this.” The WFO CTD SAC told the OIG that because President Trump would be speaking, “we knew that the numbers of people in the city would be high.”
The remainder of Trump-related references in the OIG report largely have to do with an abortive White House effort to replace high-ranking officials in the DOJ. A footnote explains this shelved plan was wholly unrelated to what eventually occurred in the Capitol.
The thrust of the report is a finding that the FBI “took significant and appropriate steps to prepare” for possible violence on Jan. 6.
Critically, the report found the FBI did not sufficiently canvass field offices and informants in a way that would have helped identify “potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification.”
Read the DOJ press release announcing the report here.
The full report is available here.
