Republican conspiracy theorists are probably quite accustomed to reality discrediting their ideas, but this has nevertheless been a rough week for them. Many GOP officials, for example, were heavily invested in Alexander Smirnov’s dubious claims about President Joe Biden, but the profiteer has since admitted that he made up the allegations.
In case that weren’t enough to ruin Republican conspiracy theorists’ day, the developments in Smirnov’s criminal case coincided with an important inspector general’s report. The New York Times reported:
More than two dozen F.B.I. informants were in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, but contrary to widespread conspiracy theories, bureau officials did not order anyone to break the law as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol that day, according to a report by a Justice Department watchdog released on Thursday. After a nearly four-year investigation, the department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, also determined that the F.B.I. had not stationed any undercover agents in the crowd that gathered at the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory over Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election.
Horowitz’s full, 88-page report was published online and is available to the public.
It’s important to emphasize that the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office did not limit its lengthy investigation to this one line of inquiry. On the contrary, the bulk of the report focused on the FBI and its missteps ahead of the Jan. 6 riot.
But in terms of the larger political conversation, the investigation’s findings related to FBI informants are reverberating the loudest.
Those who don’t follow far-right rhetoric closely might not appreciate the degree to which many Republicans and their allies have spent nearly four years pushing the idea that federal law enforcement instigated the insurrectionist assault. The absurd claims grew so common that they were given a name: The “fedsurrection“ narrative was rooted in the idea that it was the FBI, and not Trump’s rabid followers, that was responsible for the violence at the U.S. Capitol.
We already knew — from congressional investigations and multiple federal court cases — that the conspiracy theory was baseless. But in case there were still any lingering doubts, the Justice Department’s inspector general erased them in unambiguous detail.
It was against this backdrop that Vice President-elect JD Vance decided to tweak the theory, apparently hoping no one would notice.
By way of social media, the Ohio Republican highlighted an item noting that the Jan. 6 crowd included FBI informants. “For those keeping score at home, this was labeled a dangerous conspiracy theory months ago,” Vance wrote online.
I’m not in a position to say whether the senator was genuinely confused or cynically trying to pull one over on the public, but either way, Vance’s missive was fundamentally unserious. The far-right conspiracy theory wasn’t that the Jan. 6 mob included some who were confidential FBI informants. We already knew this. Some even testified during Jan. 6 criminal cases. Rather, as Vance really ought to know, the conspiracy theory is that the FBI was somehow responsible for instigating the attack and entrapping Trump’s poor, unsuspecting supporters. Horowitz’s findings shred these claims. Not only did the IG conclude that the FBI informants weren’t authorized or encouraged to break the law, but the same findings made clear that there were no undercover FBI employees at the Capitol, either. If Republican conspiracy theorists want to apologize right about now, that’d be great. If they want to enjoy a little quiet time, that’d be understandable. But for Vance to suggest that the inspector general’s findings somehow bolster Republican conspiracy theories is ridiculous.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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