After months of maintaining a narrative that the January 6 “insurrection” — involving little more than criminal trespass — was a “coordinated attack,” the FBI now admits there is “scant evidence” to support that claim. According to a report citing four current and former law-enforcement officials, the FBI does not believe the events of January 6 were centrally coordinated by a right-wing conspiracy of Trump supporters.
Reuters is reporting that four current and former law-enforcement officials described as having been “either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations” told the media outlet that the Great Trespassing was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump and that the FBI has found “scant evidence” that the events of that day were the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result.
For the past seven months, the narrative of a right-wing conspiracy behind the events of January 6 has held that there was a concerted effort to overthrow the government — or at least to overturn the results of the election. Now, the FBI is acknowledging what many have said all along: It was a bad move by angry individuals who all happened to be in the same (wrong) place at the same (wrong) time. There was no concerted effort; no conspiracy. One former senior law- enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters, “Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” adding, “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized.” That former law-enforcement official went on to say — and this is the important part — “But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”
So, after seven months, the official story that a pro-Trump conspiracy to overthrow the government — which claim was bolstered by statements from the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — has been proven false. Because even while the federal government is prosecuting more than 500 of the trespassers from that day, the FBI can not find any real evidence that there was anything approaching a conspiracy and that anything much more than criminal trespass happened at the Capitol Building on January 6.
As to the possible five percent that may be “militia groups” and “were more closely organized,” Reuters reported:
FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said.
Setting aside the erroneous assertion that Oath Keepers is anything close to a “far-right” or “militia” group, the salient point here is that the most the FBI found in its months-long investigation is that some disconnected groups had plans within their own individual groups to gain entry into the Capitol Building — but no plans at all about what to do next.
In what world does that sound like a dangerous “insurrection” that threatened to topple the U.S. government or overturn the 2020 election?
There are two major points to take away from all of this. First — and most obviously — is the fact that the narrative that the Biden administration has both fed on and promoted for the past seven months is patently false. Second — and more importantly — is the fact that the vast majority of the January 6 trespassers got caught up in events set in place by an extremely small minority. When what the FBI estimates as “five percent, maybe” go out of bounds and the other 95 percent get caught up in the moment, those 95 percent can wind up in an awful lot of trouble.
The vast majority of the more-than-500 people charged with a variety of crimes related to the events of January 6 appear to be average, normally law-abiding citizens who — because of their concern about election shenanigans — went to the Trump rally to show support and hopefully help raise awareness. Unfortunately, by getting caught up in a mob mentality, they wound up getting played against the very point they were trying to make, and the liberal establishment has milked the “insurrection” narrative for all it was worth (and then some). But with the FBI investigation now showing their was no massive conspiracy, no attempt to overthrow the government, and no concerted plan to do anything more serious than criminal trespass, that narrative may just fall apart.
But there is also a lesson to learn here. Next time — and whatever it is, there will almost certainly be a next time — the better part of wisdom will call for patriots to avoid the mob mentality and stay in bounds. Because if the media spin of the past seven months gives any indication, the liberal establishment will blow anything out of proportion.
