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GOP Rep. Thomas Massie questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland on the Jan. 6 siege on Capitol Hill, asking him if federal agents, assets, or provocateurs had infiltrated the protest and incited a riot.
During a House hearing on Thursday, Massie showed several videos of an individual who was inciting violence at the Jan. 6 riot as he grilled Garland. The man in the video has not been charged and the Republican congressman bluntly asked the attorney general if he was a federal provocateur.
When Garland informed Massie that he couldn’t “see the video at all,” Massie responded, “You have the images there,” referring to pictures Garland had in front of him.
“They were from January 5th and January 6th,” Massie noted.
“As far as we can determine, the individual who was saying he’ll ‘probably go to jail’ and he’ll ‘probably be arrested,’ but he wants everyone—-they need everyone to go into the Capitol the next day, is then the next day seen directing people into the Capitol. But as far as we can tell, this individual has not been charged with anything. You said this was one of the most sweeping investigations in history. So, have you seen this video or those frames from the video?” Massie asked.
“So, as I’ve said at the outset, one of the norms of the Justice Department is to not comment on impending ongoing investigations and not comment about particular scenes or particular individuals,” Garland awkwardly and noncommittedly deflected.
“I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5th and January 6th. Can you tell us without talking about particular videos how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 6th? Whether they agitated to go into the Capitol? And if any of them did?” Massie continued.
“I’m not going to violate this norm of the rule of law. I’m not going to comment on an investigation that’s ongoing,” Garland asserted.
Conservative author and commentator Candace Owens reacted in a tweet saying the FBI “were the insurrectionists – just as I predicted.”
“There was never a ‘Trump’ insurrection—it was ALWAYS deep state,” she added.