In the aftermath of the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, top Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity pushed conspiracy theories suggesting that Donald Trump and his supporters were not responsible for the riot. “We may never know the truth here,” Carlson had said of the incident, before implying that it was unclear who the agitators were. Federal investigators have since made hundreds of arrests confirming what was already known: A pro-Trump horde was responsible for breaking into the Capitol building and attempting to disrupt the congressional vote certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Carlson went on to downplay the violence by describing it as a “political protest that got out of hand,” but he has now pivoted to a different unhinged theory to obfuscate blame away from the former president’s rabid supporters. On Tuesday night, the most popular host on cable news suggested that the Capitol insurrection was a false flag operation carried out by members of the FBI, which he said is now using “law enforcement and military force to arrest, imprison, and otherwise crush anyone who leads opposition to Joe Biden’s government.”
Carlson went on to borrow a line from Vladimir Putin to suggest that the Biden administration is transforming the United States from “a democratic republic into something else. We’re looking at growing authoritarianism.” When Putin was asked by an NBC News reporter if he ordered the assassination of Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny, the Russian president replied, “Of course not. We don’t have this kind of habit of assassinating anybody… Did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman? Do you know that 450 individuals were arrested after entering the Congress? And they didn’t go there to steal a laptop. They came with political demands.” Carlson described Putin’s remarks as “fair questions,” saying, “Who did shoot Ashli Babbitt? Why don’t we know? Are anonymous federal agents now allowed to kill unarmed women who protest the regime?” (The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division investigated Babbitt’s death and opted to not pursue criminal charges against the Capitol Police officer who shot her).
Carlson cited an article from the right-wing outlet Revolver News to allege that the January 6 attack on the Capitol may have been orchestrated, at least in part, by FBI operatives. (Revolver News’ Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter who was fired from his White House position for speaking at a white nationalist conference, appeared on Carlson’s show later in the segment.) While claiming that the government is “hiding the identity of many law enforcement officers who were present at the Capitol on January 6,” Carlson added, “We know that because, without fail, the government has thrown the book at most of the people who were present in the Capitol on January 6. There was a nationwide dragnet to find them. Many of them are still in solitary confinement tonight.” He continued: “But strangely, some of the key people who participated on January 6 have not been charged. Look at the documents, the government calls those people unindicted coconspirators. What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case they were FBI operatives. Really? In the Capitol on January 6?”
In the case of one indictment, against an alleged member of the Oath Keepers who was charged after breaking into the Capitol, Carlson said that two additional people were listed in the indictment but haven’t yet been charged. “The government knows who they are, but they have not charged them. Why is that? You know why,” he said. “They were almost certainly working for the FBI. So FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol, on January 6, according to government documents.”
Carlson’s theorizing was quickly picked up by QAnon influencer turned lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene as proof of the “deep state” involvement on January 6. “We need names and answers about the FBI operatives, who were involved in organizing and carrying out the Jan 6th Capitol riot,” Greene wrote in response to Representative Matt Gaetz sharing the segment on Twitter. “First they had a ‘back up plan’ to stop Trump in Russia Collusion witch hunt, now we are finding out they were deeply involved in Jan 6th.” On Tuesday, Representative Paul Gosar—one of 21 Republicans who on Tuesday voted against awarding congressional medals to police officers who responded to the Capitol insurrection—posed similar arguments as Carlson did regarding Ashli Babbitt, saying she was “executed” by an officer who was “lying in wait” before opening fire.
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