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President Donald Trump on Thursday praised FBI agents who were deployed to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and later spoke out about political bias within the bureau under former Director Christopher Wray.
Trump’s remarks followed a report that revealed Wray secretly dispatched more than 250 plainclothes FBI agents to the Capitol during the riot, describing the internal operation as “disorganized” and riddled with safety and communication failures.
According to the outlet, an after-action report compiled by the bureau detailed anonymous complaints from FBI personnel, including many from its Washington Field Office, who said they were sent into volatile conditions without adequate protective gear or clear ways to identify themselves to local law enforcement.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump commended those agents for their service and their decision to come forward about the alleged political bias they witnessed under Wray’s leadership.
“To all the FBI Agents who were forced by Christopher Wray to go to the Capitol on the afternoon of January 6th, and then risked their careers to blow the whistle about the Political Bias and Abuses they witnessed, I want to thank you for your Courage,” Trump wrote.
He continued, “[I want to] assure you that you now work for a Director, Kash Patel, and an Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who are stamping out Political Bias from the Bureau and DOJ, and making sure Agents pursue criminals without regard to their political stripe, just the evidence. Keep up the good work!”
The internal after-action report, discovered by Patel’s team at the FBI, has reportedly been turned over to the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is examining law enforcement conduct during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The report shows how agents expressed frustration with the FBI’s lack of coordination and alleged politicization of operations surrounding the Capitol unrest. Some agents said they were ordered into “an unsafe and chaotic environment” without basic safeguards or identification measures that could distinguish them from rioters or local police.
The deployment of undercover and plainclothes agents to the Capitol has long been a point of contention among lawmakers and watchdog groups seeking transparency about the federal government’s role during the events of Jan. 6.
