Chicago police, Proud Boys, jan 6

DOJ OIG Report Criticizes FBI Response To Jan. 6 Insurrection

The impending inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump also brings with it the potential for presidential pardons, as Trump has made overtures on several occasions that he believes the insurrectionists are American patriots.


In December 2024, the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced the release of the DOJ’s report on the intelligence collection by the FBI leading up to the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. According to the press release from the office of the inspector general, the report clarified a few points regarding the FBI’s preparation ahead of the events on Jan. 6.

Chief among those points was the determination that the FBI took significant and appropriate steps ahead of the attempted insurrection; however, the report also indicated that the FBI should have taken the additional step of canvassing their field offices to help prepare better for what transpired on Jan. 6.

In addition to this, there was confusion and a lack of coordination, which led the FBI to assert to Congress that it had canvassed its field offices when in fact, it had not.

Contrary to assertions from Elon Musk and others aligned with far-right Republicans, there were no undercover FBI agents or other FBI employees at either protests or crowds at the Capitol on January 6.

On Jan. 6, 2025, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement in a press release recognizing the intensive work of the FBI to investigate what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Over the past four years, our prosecutors, FBI agents, investigators, and analysts have conducted one of the most complex and resource-intensive investigations in the Justice Department’s history. They have analyzed massive amounts of physical and digital data, identified and arrested hundreds of people who took part in unlawful conduct that day and initiated prosecutions and secured convictions across a wide range of criminal conduct. We have now charged more than 1,500 individuals for crimes that occurred on January 6, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack,” Garland said.

He continued, “The public servants of the Justice Department have sought to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy with unrelenting integrity. They have conducted themselves in a manner that adheres to the rule of law and honors our obligation to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of everyone in this country.”

According to CBS News, the impending inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump also brings with it the potential for presidential pardons, as Trump has made overtures on several occasions that he believes the insurrectionists are American patriots.

Trump’s transition spokesperson, Caroline Leavitt, told the outlet that Trump plans to “pardon Americans who were denied due process and unfairly prosecuted by the weaponized Department of Justice.”

According to documents obtained by CBS News, some of the Jan. 6 defendants have cited Trump’s promises of a pardon in their petitions to judges to have their cases paused or delayed.

The day after the election, attorneys for one defendant, Christopher Carnell, wrote in a petition that their client, who faced nonviolent disorderly conduct charges, was “expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office.”

However, Carnell’s request was denied, and he was subsequently convicted on multiple counts and sentenced to serve six months in prison.

Despite the requests from January 6 participants, Alexis Loeb, a former federal prosecutor who helped to lead the Capitol attack investigation until October, noted that those particular cases are based on a large amount of evidence.

“These were prosecutions that were staffed by career employees. And the cases often had a remarkable amount of evidence given all of the video that was taken that day,” Loeb told CBS News.

Judge Royce Lamberth, a senior judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, seemed to agree with Loeb’s assertion and also backed how federal judges have handled the cases in his own statement.

“Just as the President must make decisions on matters of clemency without interference from the coordinate branches, so too must our judiciary independently administer the laws and sentence convicted offenders,” Lamberth wrote. “No matter what ultimately becomes of the Capital Riots cases already concluded and still pending, the true story of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 will never change.”

RELATED CONTENT: New Podcast Series Covers The Black, Latino, And South Asian Insurrection Investigators Of The January 6th Committee


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