The FBI has disclosed that it had 275 plainclothes agents within the crowds at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, more than four years after lawmakers and the public first raised questions about the bureau’s involvement.

The information was confirmed to Congress and comes despite prior Justice Department statements suggesting no FBI undercover personnel were present.

🚨 BREAKING: The FBI had at LEAST 275 plainclothes agents present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, The Blaze’s @SteveBakerUSA has learned

Conspiracy theorists were right again!

We’ve been lied to for YEARS. Time for the deep state actors who staged J6 to be indicted. pic.twitter.com/hNL7ueY0xX

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 26, 2025

According to a senior congressional source, the figure was not entirely unexpected, since the FBI frequently deploys countersurveillance personnel at large-scale events.

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However, the bureau’s longstanding refusal to provide details about its presence at the Capitol has fueled skepticism about its activities that day.

The revelation follows a December 2024 report by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, which concluded that “no evidence” showed undercover FBI employees were in the protest crowds or inside the Capitol itself.

The inspector general’s report noted instead that 26 FBI confidential human sources, also known as informants, were present on January 6.

Four of those informants entered the Capitol, though none were authorized to do so or to encourage unlawful behavior.

The inspector general report stated that only three of the informants had been specifically directed by the FBI to travel to Washington to monitor “domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event.”

The report emphasized that no confidential source had been directed to commit or provoke illegal acts.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the House Jan. 6 Select Subcommittee, has pledged to continue pressing the FBI about its operations that day.

“But with that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?” Loudermilk said during a September 23 interview with Just the News.

Separate court filings have also raised questions about the scope of federal involvement.

In May 2024, former Jan. 6 defendant William Pope identified nearly 50 FBI agents and affiliated personnel operating at the Capitol.

The list included members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, U.S. Army counterintelligence, and others.

Pope argued that many of these personnel later contributed to probable-cause affidavits used in Jan. 6 arrests.

It remains unclear whether those individuals were included in the 275 plainclothes employees now acknowledged by the FBI.

Congressional committees have repeatedly attempted to obtain a full accounting of FBI operations during the protests, but the bureau has resisted providing specifics about its plainclothes agents and informants.

The latest disclosure is unlikely to end questions from former defendants and other observers who have alleged that federal personnel may have played a role in escalating the unrest.

Similar concerns have been raised about undercover officers with the Metropolitan Police Department.

Some MPD officers admitted to assisting protesters in climbing barriers, encouraging them to move toward the Capitol, and applauding acts of vandalism.

Large portions of video recorded by undercover MPD personnel have not been released publicly, despite legal efforts by Pope to make the material available in court.

In addition to plainclothes agents and informants, federal tactical teams were also deployed at the Capitol.

FBI teams entered the building after Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot outside the Speaker’s Lobby at 2:44 p.m.

Units from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, along with the U.S. Marshals Service, also responded.

The disclosure that hundreds of FBI agents operated in plainclothes at the Capitol adds new detail to the still-unfolding picture of law enforcement involvement on January 6.

The admission is expected to prompt further congressional inquiry into the scope and role of federal personnel during one of the most scrutinized events in recent American history.