Assessing Trump’s Latest Claims About the January 6 Capitol Attack

During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump made several misleading and incorrect statements related to the events of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building after a rally. These include claiming that some people who participated in January 6-related events “came from the FBI,” that some January 6 participants were imprisoned despite having never entered the Capitol building that day, that there “wasn’t one gun found” by protesters on January 6, and that the FBI knows the identity of the unidentified suspect who placed pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on January 5. 

Claim: The FBI was involved on January 6.

When asked whether Trump would pardon January 6 offenders charged with violent crimes, the president-elect responded by making claims about the FBI’s involvement. “I guess 24 or 28 people came now from the FBI—that came out very quietly,” Trump said. “Nobody reported it, but they had people in some form related to the FBI. They had four or five people that were strongly related to the FBI. We have to find out about that.”

This claim is missing context. Trump is referencing a December 12 report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General that found there were 26 FBI confidential human informants at the Capitol riot on January 6, but no undercover agents or other FBI employees. Because the “Stop the Steal” protests that preceded the Capitol attack were “First Amendment-protected events,” FBI policy did not allow any undercover agents to be stationed within the raucous crowds. Some FBI agents pushed to send in undercover agents to investigate the various protest rallies on January 6, but their requests were rejected: One FBI field office requested authorization for undercover agents to “engage in investigative authority on January 6,” but was denied by a high-ranking agent in the bureau’s Washington, D.C., field office, per the report. 

Instead, the FBI sent confidential human informants—people who voluntarily feed information to the FBI but don’t work for the agency in any official capacity—to report on the January 6 events from within the crowd. As The Dispatch Fact Check previously reported on the difference between FBI informants and undercover agents:

Confidential human sources are not FBI employees—they have not gone through formal FBI agent training and, while some are paid for their services, are not salaried employees in the federal intelligence agency. 

…

Signing up to be a FBI confidential informant is not as simple as volunteering for a local soup kitchen. Informants must first pass a standardized “validation” process, which requires an FBI agent to collect personal information, including their identity, prior criminal history, and potential motivations for becoming an informant. If approved, informants must attest that information they give is truthful, shared voluntarily, and that they will “not take or seek to take any independent action on behalf of the United States Government.”

FBI informants also do not possess any investigative or law enforcement authority—they cannot make any arrests, search any person or vehicle without their permission, or engage in any illegal activity. Still, 17 FBI informants did commit a federal crime by trespassing on Capitol grounds on January 6—13 of whom entered the restricted security perimeter and four who entered the Capitol building. However, as the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., explained in the report, the office did not charge any FBI informants for illegally entering Capitol grounds because it has “generally not charged” January 6 participants for whom that was their only offense. Those who participated in the January 6 events but committed no crime apart from entering the Capitol security perimeter faced no greater legal consequences than the FBI informants who did the same—they were never charged. 

While it is unclear what Trump meant by “four or five people that were strongly related to the FBI,” the report noted that two of the 26 FBI informants were instructed by their FBI field office to travel to Washington on January 6, and three were specifically tasked to report on “domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event.” One was tasked to report on a domestic terrorist suspect who traveled to D.C. for Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential electors, a second was tasked to report on two suspects who traveled to D.C. for the January 6 protest rally, and a third informant traveled to D.C. on his own volition and, upon telling his FBI contact that he planned to be in D.C. on January 6, was tasked to “potentially report” on two other suspects who had also traveled to the city. 

Claim: January 6 Participants Who Never Entered Capitol Building Have Been Jailed

Trump also claimed that some of those imprisoned for January 6-related charges did not enter the Capitol building. “People that were doing some bad things weren’t prosecuted, and people that didn’t even walk into the building are in jail right now,” Trump said. “So we’ll be looking at the whole thing, but I’ll be making major pardons.”

Trump is correct that several January 6 participants who did not enter the Capitol building are currently imprisoned for their actions that day, but his claim is missing crucial context—mainly, that they were convicted for crimes more serious than entering the Capitol building. 

For example, Stewart Rhodes—leader of the Oath Keepers, a radical militant group—received an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to January 6. Rhodes entered the security perimeter surrounding the Capitol during the attack, but did not enter the Capitol building itself because he was “directing and coordinating activities” for his followers, per the DOJ. Nearly two months before January 6, Rhodes drafted a plan to use force to block the peaceful transition of power and encouraged others to participate. In the week leading up to January 6, Rhodes spent a total of $15,500 on firearms and related equipment and accessories on four separate occasions. Shortly after violence broke out at the Capitol, Rhodes entered the security perimeter and urged his followers to follow suit. During the Capitol assault, Rhodes was in direct communication with Oath Keepers who had breached the building. “He was the one giving the orders,” said U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who sentenced Rhodes to prison. “Oath Keepers wouldn’t have been there [Washington D.C.] but for Stewart Rhodes, I don’t think anyone contends otherwise. He was the one who gave the order to go, and they went.”

Similarly, Enrique Tarrio—the former national chairman of the Proud Boys, a far-right militant group—received a 22-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy despite not entering the Capitol building. But, as with Rhodes, Tarrio hands were not clean: After the 2020 election, he created a new Proud Boys chapter made up of hand-picked “rally boys,” established a leadership structure within the group, and planned a “DC trip” where he instructed members to dress “incognito.” Ultimately, Tarrio was arrested two days before January 6 for burning a Black Lives Matter flag and illegally possessing ammunition, and was given a court order to leave the city until required to appear in court months later. But on January 6, Tarrio was “monitoring the attack from afar,” according to the DOJ. “Make no mistake … we did this,” Tarrio told other Proud Boys leaders during the Capitol attack, while also posting to social media, “Don’t f—ing leave.” “Mr. Tarrio was the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal,” said U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who issued Tarrio’s sentencing. “That conspiracy ended up with about 200 men amped up for battle encircling the Capitol.”

Claim: January 6 Protesters Were Not Armed with Guns

Later in the press conference, Trump was asked whether he’d consider pardoning January 6 offenders charged with attacking police officers. In his response, Trump emphasized that “people went in … with not one gun.”

“There was never charges of insurrection or anything like that. But if there were, this would be the only insurrection in history where people went in as insurrectionists with not one gun. Okay?” Trump said. “And let me tell you, the people that you’re talking about have a lot of guns in their home: for hunting, and for shooting, and for entertainment, a lot of good reasons, but there wasn’t one gun that they found.”

The claim that January 6 protesters did not carry guns to the Capitol is false. Several individuals have been convicted on federal and local firearms offense charges, including those who brought their guns onto or near Capitol grounds. 

A few examples:

Mark Mazza was sentenced to 60 months in prison for bringing two loaded guns onto Capitol grounds, and for assaulting a police officer. On January 6, Mazza entered Capitol grounds and accidentally lost one of his guns, a Taurus revolver loaded with shotgun shells and hollow-point bullets. His other firearm was a loaded semiautomatic pistol. Mazza proceeded inside the Capitol building, where he attacked law enforcement officers with a stolen police baton. Two days after January 6, Mazza filed a police report in Indiana, where he falsely claimed to have lost his revolver in an Ohio casino. 

Christopher Alberts was given a prison sentence of 84 months for a series of felony offenses that included bringing a loaded 9 mm firearm and ammunition in the Capitol. He wasn’t found to have used the gun during the attack, instead using a wooden pallet to assault police officers. Law enforcement later that night arrested Alberts, who had remained on Capitol grounds. 

Guy Reffit received a 87-month prison sentence on several January 6-related charges, and also brought a loaded gun onto Capitol grounds. Per the DOJ, on the morning of January 6, Reffit carried a handgun and flexi-cuffs (zip-ties) to the White House Ellipse and later that day went to the Capitol. Reffit—a member of a radical militia group the Texas Three Percenters—told fellow members and other January 6 participants that day “that he planned to physically drag Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi out of the Capitol Building by her ankles,” per the DOJ. Although he never entered the Capitol building, he led rioters up the steps to the Capitol and bragged about it. “I didn’t make it in there,” he said in a self-recorded video. “But I started the fire.”

Lonnie Coffman was sentenced to 46 months after law enforcement on January 6 found his pickup truck—parked less than half-a-mile from the Capitol building—was stashed with a variety of weapons. According to the DOJ, his truck contained “several loaded firearms within arms-reach of the driver’s seat, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, a crossbow with bolts, machetes, camouflage smoke devices, a stun gun, and a cooler containing 11 mason jars filled with ignitable ingredients for Molotov cocktail incendiary weapons.” Coffman was also found to have brought two firearms—a handgun and revolver, both loaded—to the area around the Stop the Steal rally, but was not charged with bringing firearms onto Capitol grounds specifically. 

Claim: The FBI ‘Knows’ Identity of the D.C. Pipe Bomb Suspect

After Trump claimed no guns were found during January 6, he falsely claimed in the same response that the FBI knows the identity of the person suspected of placing pipe bombs outside high-profile political sites in Washington. 

“And why didn’t they find the bomber, the pipe bomber. You know, they know who the pipe bomber is. The FBI knows who it is,” Trump said. “The status of the FBI has gone down so far, and the status of the DOJ, or as I call it, the Department of injustice.”

Trump is referencing a failed domestic terror plot from January 5, 2021, in which an unknown individual placed a pipe bomb in two Washington, D.C., locations: one at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, and the other at the Republican National Committee headquarters. Claims that the suspect’s identity is known to the FBI or other law enforcement are baseless and lack evidence. And the FBI isn’t the only law enforcement agency investigating the pipe bomber—the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department; and the U.S. Capitol Police Department also have been involved in the search for the suspect. Images the FBI obtained of the suspect the same day he placed the pipe bombs indicate he carried a backpack and “wore a face mask, glasses, gloves, a grey hooded sweatshirt, and black and light grey Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow logo.” The FBI has continued to offer up to $500,000 for tips leading to the would-be terrorist’s identity. On January 2, 2025, the FBI shared “previously unreleased” footage of the suspect placing the pipe bomb outside DNC headquarters, again asking people to pass along any relevant information they may have. 

As a previous Dispatch Fact Check explained about false claims regarding the pipe bomber’s identity:

Who placed the explosives there remains one of the biggest mysteries surrounding January 6 despite a three-year investigation and a $500,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. The FBI believes the pipe bombs were planted near the two buildings by a lone individual on the night of January 5, 2021, but authorities remain uncertain of an exact motive. In a June 2023 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Steven D’Antuono, former assistant director in charge of the Washington field office, testified that lab analysis determined the bombs were viable and could have exploded.

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