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2. As another Jan. 6 conspiracy theory collapses, JD Vance pretends otherwise
Fri Dec 13, 2024, 10:55 AM
Dec 13

Despite the vice president-elect's claims, the Justice Department's inspector general just shredded a key Jan. 6 conspiracy theory.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3ld6xa52ib22s

The Justice Department's inspector general shredded the "fedsurrection" Jan. 6 conspiracy theory that's popular with far-right Republicans.

For JD Vance to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...



https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/another-jan-6-conspiracy-theory-collapses-jd-vance-pretends-otherwise-rcna184106

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......

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.

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