So this week Fox’s Tucker Carlson had the audacity to question whether there was FBI involvement in the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
The liberal media went nuts. Here are a couple of samples, the first from Aaron Blake at The Washington Post:
Tucker Carlson’s wild, baseless theory blaming the FBI for organizing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot
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Then there was this headline from The Business Insider:
Tucker Carlson baselessly claims ‘FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol,’ his latest whitewashing of Jan. 6
There were other, similar, reactions to what Tucker was saying, including from Members of Congress.
But what fascinates is the utter lack of historical knowledge in the liberal media and elsewhere (Congress!) that the FBI in fact has a very long history of doing just what Tucker is questioning – all of it documented.
In 2020, the left-leaning The Intercept headlined this:
A Short History Of U.S. Law Enforcement Infiltrating Protests
For decades, local police and FBI have sent undercover officials to participate in — and escalate — protests.
The Intercept reporters compiled a list of FBI informants actively participating in everything from burning down a building at the University of Alabama to protest the Kent State shootings in 1970, working in the far-left Weather Underground to bomb a Cincinnati public school, and breaking and entering into a federal building to steal draft records during the Vietnam War.
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In a particularly horrific episode, in March 1965 the Ku Klux Klan followed white civil rights protestor Viola Liuzzo and shot her to death as she was driving along a darkened highway with a black male passenger. Liuzzo had become known to the Klan for protests in Selma. One of the four people in the shooter’s car was, yes indeed, working for the FBI. His FBI handler later admitted the obvious – the FBI “informant” was in fact “ a party to a murder.” He knew the plan was to murder Liuzzo, and got in the car as its occupants set out to commit murder – and sat there while they did.
There is more out there on this kind of FBI behavior, notably in books like The FBI by author Ronald Kessler and Enemies: A History of the FBI by left-leaning author Tim Weiner.
Given all of this FBI history, one wonders if The Washington Post has any awareness at all about what is reported on the FBI and January 6th as reported in…The Washington Post.
Here’s the headline in The Post from January 12, 2021, six days after the attack:
FBI report warned of ‘war’ at Capitol, contradicting claims there was no indication of looming violence
The Post reported this, bold print supplied for emphasis:
“A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and ‘war,’ according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s demonstrations in support of President Trump planned to do harm.
A situational information report approved for release the day before the U.S. Capitol riot painted a dire portrait of dangerous plans, including individuals sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels, and possible rally points for would-be conspirators to meet in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina and head in groups to Washington.
“As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to ‘unlawful lockdowns’ to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington, D.C.,” the document says.”
So according to The Post, the FBI did in fact know what was coming. The obvious question is….how? This leads back to Tucker Carlson’s question: Was there an FBI informant in one of the groups planning the attack – and if so, did that person participate in the attack or in any way join in the planning? I have no idea of the answer. But given the seriousness of what happened, one would think journalists would want to investigate.
Again. This, in fact, has happened repeatedly in FBI history. There is nothing conspiratorial in asking, as Tucker Carlson has done, why the Biden administration is not investigating this. I would add – why isn’t the media investigating?
But for whatever reason, the liberal media – in spite of running stories that say the FBI indeed had a heads up on the attack – simply labels Tucker’s questions a “baseless conspiracy theory.”
Put another way, the spirit of Woodward and Bernstein – questioning government authority, doing endless investigative legwork, asking questions and all the rest that unearthed the Watergate scandal – is long, long gone from The Washington Post and the liberal media in general.
While on a different subject matter – the role of the Wuhan Lab in the Covid-19 virus – there is a resemblance in the way both government and the media treated that issue. Over here at Townhall is this headline:
The Wuhan Story That Finally Has Legs, Now That Trump Is Gone
Reporter John Kass says, in part, this:
“What are we learning about the American political-media establishment now that the origin story of the coronavirus pandemic appears to be radically changing?”
After reporting on the facts surrounding the lab as reported in The Wall Street Journal, Kass writes:
“…We’re also learning, and relearning, about institutional rot and the triumph of political ideology over-analysis.
But will the political-media establishment of Washington use this moment to reexamine itself and reflect?”
Kass’s answer: “Don’t hold your breath.”
Kass is right.
The rush to criticize Tucker Carlson because he has had the audacity to question the role of the FBI on January 6th is done by the self-same media that dumped on those who had the nerve to raise the subject of a potential connection between the Wuhan Lab and the virus. It is done without the slightest reflection on actual FBI history when it comes to infiltrating extremist groups and participating in their violent actions.
One would think at this point that the wise thing for liberal journalists to be doing is – gasp! – investigating whether or not something like this did, in fact, happen. Find the facts.
But when one realizes the instant response of the liberal media is to simply ignore the quite serious and detailed factual history of the FBI when it comes to infiltrating and participating in extremist, violent groups – not to mention dismiss allegations of a potential tie between the Wuhan Lab and the virus spread – John Kass has the right read.
Don’t hold your breath.
