For the second time this year, FBI Director Kash Patel has stepped forward to correct claims about a MAGA conspiracy theory he once played a key role in promoting.
For the second time this year, he could be fighting a losing battle.
Months ago, it was Patel’s sudden move to downplay the Jeffrey Epstein files. As a right-wing commentator, he had played up a massive supposed conspiracy that suggested the government was hiding others who were involved in Epstein’s crimes, saying at one point, “Put on your big boy pants, and let us know who the pedophiles are.”
But in May, as FBI director, he suddenly said the evidence showed there was nothing explosive in the files, angering the MAGA movement.
We got something of a repeat this weekend after conservative media and President Donald Trump seized on leaked information that said 274 FBI agents were dispatched amid the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
They promptly butchered the information, though. They suggested it was evidence that the agents were “embedded” in the crowd beforehand – and even that the agents were the kinds of government provocateurs inciting rioters that MAGA has long baselessly theorized about.
Trump quickly cast it in the most scandalous terms.
“It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed … 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax,” Trump said on Truth Social on Saturday. He added that the agents were “probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists,...
Trump falsely claims 274 FBI agents were placed in the January 6 crowd. DOJ report found no evidence FBI agents orchestrated the Capitol riot. 1,400 arrests made and 1,000 convictions tied to the...