Following Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill breach, several dozens of citizens were arrested and indicted by law enforcement agencies. On his June 15 show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” at Fox News, Carlson suggested that undercover government spies may have helped to orchestrate the riots.
Unindicted co-conspirators
Carlson cited a report by Revolver.news, which examines the unindicted co-conspirators of the Jan. 6 breach with ties to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. The unindicted co-conspirators may have been undercover government spies.
Oath Keepers
In the indictment against Thomas Caldwell, two unindicted co-conspirators were mentioned – “Person Two” and “Person Three.” Caldwell is a member of the Oath Keepers, and his case was the first major indictment following the Capitol incident.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) refers to the Oath Keepers as a “militia” or “paramilitary” group. 65-year-old Caldwell was arrested on January 19 and was indicted on charges of “conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and unlawful entry on restricted building or grounds,” according to a DoJ press release.
According to the indictment against Caldwell, Person Two (P2) was a key co-conspirator who mirrored Caldwell in almost every act of crime. Along with Caldwell, P2 planned logistics of the entire incident well in advance of Jan. 6. P2 stayed in the same hotel room as Caldwell, and when Caldwell stormed the barricades into restricted areas of the Capitol, P2 was right beside him.
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However, only Caldwell has been charged, even though his indictment shows that P2 is equally guilty. “For some strange reason, Person Two, who could not have gotten a plea deal, is not indicted, named, or pursued at all,” states the Revolver report.
Caldwell’s charges reveal another individual, Person Three (P3), who was referred to as the “quick reaction force.” P3 reserved and paid for several hotel rooms booked for Oath Keepers members. P3 possessed several maps detailing the routes from the hotel to Washington D.C. He was tasked with stashing away heavy weapons in the hotel and being on standby until summoned to deliver the weapons to protestors.
In addition to P2 and P3, there were many other co-conspirators who were not charged. “There are what appears to be upwards of 20 unindicted co-conspirators in the Oath Keepers indictments, all playing various roles in the conspiracy, who have not been charged for virtually the exact same activities — and in some cases much, much more severe activities — as those named alongside them in indictments,” according to the Revolver report.
Proud Boys
Another group linked to the Capitol breach is the Proud Boys. On Jan. 4, two days prior to the incident, the national chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, a “known FBI informant,” was arrested on weapons charges. He was ordered by a judge to stay away from Washington D.C. “What better excuse for the leader not to be present on that fateful day,” the report states.
The Proud Boys has a special chapter within the organization called the Ministry of Self Defense (MOSD). After Tarrio was arrested, the MOSD Telegram channel was “nuked.” Instead, a new channel called “New MOSD” was created, with four members who were eventually indicted for breaching the Capitol.
The case also involves three members who were unindicted co-conspirators – UCC-1, Person-1, and Person-2. All three were top leaders in the New MOSD Telegram group. UCC-1 set up the communication channel for the indicted Proud Boys members, Person-1 gave operational instructions to members, and Person-2 posted inflammatory and inciting comments.
“It is difficult to understand how the unindicted co-conspirators described above have not yet been indicted,” says the report.
The arrest of Tanios
To highlight the double standard the government agencies have adopted with regard to indicted and unindicted people, the Revolver report points out the arrest of 39-year-old sandwich shop owner George Tanios. He has been charged with nine criminal counts for actions taken outside of the Capitol building on Jan. 6.
Tanios did not enter the Capitol nor attack anyone. In fact, he even tried to stop his companion, Julian Khater, from using chemical spray on police officers. However, the DOJ still charged him with “60 years’ worth of stacking ‘conspiracy’ charges.”
Undercover operatives
Revolver.news concluded that the unindicted co-conspirators in the cases involving the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers might have been undercover government spies, which would explain why they were not indicted by the government despite performing similar crimes as their indicted co-conspirators.
“We are pointing out the seeming double standard applied to certain indicted persons (George Tanios, for example) and a number of highly suspicious unindicted co-conspirators, with a view toward the strong possibility that the latter categories contain federal informants and undercover operatives,” according to the report.
Revolver arrived at the conclusion by comparing the Capitol incident with a 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which involved undercover government operatives working with criminals.
Michigan kidnapping plot
In October 2020, just three months prior to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, the FBI announced the arrest of 14 men who were charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and planning to violently overthrow the state government.
According to the Revolver report, five of the 14 arrested individuals were undercover agents and federal informants. The incident did not begin as a kidnapping plot, but as a plan to storm the state Capitol building at Lansing. The conspirators aimed to incite 200 men from a planned rally to storm and occupy the building. Citing the annotated indictment of the case, Revolver stated the following:
- The head of transportation for the group’s militia outfit was an undercover FBI agent.
- The explosive expert, who the plotters were apparently planning to purchase bombs from, was an FBI agent.
- The head of security of the militia outfit was also an undercover FBI agent.
- Two undercover FBI informants actively participated in a meeting, in which the plan to storm the Michigan Capitol was hatched.
- Of the five people present in the van used to surveil Governor Whitmer’s vacation home, three were federal informants and agents.
Many of the people charged with the Whitmer kidnapping plot were linked to a group called “Three Percenters,” which together with the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, were said to be the main forces behind the Jan. 6 incident.
“In Michigan, you had an alleged plot involving the storming of a state capitol, allegedly involving members of one of the very same key militia groups associated with the 1/6 plot. And we’re supposed to believe that despite massive and now publicly confirmed FBI and government infiltration of the Michigan Plot, there was no similar infiltration for 1/6,” the Revolver report states.
Steven D’Antuono, Head of the FBI field office in Detroit who “oversaw the infiltration (and incitement?) operation into the Michigan plot,” was promoted to the head of the Washington field office. He is now one of the key figures overseeing the government investigation into the Jan. 6 incident.
Terrorism and civil liberties
Commenting on the Revolver report of unindicted co-conspirators being involved in the Capitol incident, Carlson stated that “It turns out this white supremacist insurrection was, again, by the government’s own admission in these documents, organized, at least in part, by government agents.”
Carlson pointed to a book by Trevor Aaronson called “The Terror Factory,” which analyzed every terrorism prosecution in the United States between 2001 and 2013. A minimum of 50 defendants were on trial due to the FBI encouraging them and even enabling them. “FBI agents were essentially the plotters in these crimes. They made the crimes, crimes,” Carlson said.
Aaronson also cited an Islamic terrorist attack in Texas in 2015, in which the FBI played an active role. A security guard who was injured in the shooting incident filed a lawsuit against the FBI, accusing the agency of being partially responsible for his injuries.
“If you empower the government to violate civil liberties in pursuit of a foreign terror organization, and there are foreign terror organizations, it’s just a matter of time before ambitious politicians use those same mechanisms to suppress political dissent. That’s what we’re seeing now. We should have seen it earlier,” Carlson stated.
With reporting by Arvind Datta.
