For years it has been alleged that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot of 2021 was incited, at least in part, by undercover FBI agents and confidential informants, and the presence of dozens of the latter in the crowd of protesters was just confirmed by the Justice Department's inspector general.

That disclosure "raises more questions than answers" in the view of constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who wonders what those FBI sources were doing in the crowd and why they haven't been prosecuted like everybody else who protested at the Capitol building that day, the Daily Caller reported.

Of particular concern to Turley was whether federal prosecutors had appropriately informed defense attorneys representing the Jan. 6 defendants of the presence and activities of FBI informants in the crowd, as that information could prove critical to some individual cases.

IG report reveals dozens of FBI informants in Jan. 6 Capitol riot crowd

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released an 88-page report this week on his investigation of the FBI's intelligence gathering and handling of "confidential human sources" before, during, and after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot of 2021.

Among Horowitz's findings was that while there was no evidence that the FBI had any undercover agents deployed in the crowd of protesters, the agency did have at least 26 confidential informants in attendance, only three of whom had been formally tasked by their FBI handlers to be there.

Notably, "None of these FBI CHSs were authorized to enter the Capitol or a restricted area, or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6." Yet, per the report, four of those sources entered the Capitol building without authorization and 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol without authorization.

However, Horowitz observed, "None of the CHSs who entered the Capitol or a restricted area has been prosecuted to date."

What were the FBI sources doing and why weren't they prosecuted?

During a recent appearance on Fox News, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley was asked about the DOJ IG report and the revelation of the presence of at least two dozen FBI informants in the crowd of Jan. 6 protesters.

"Well, in some ways, it raises more questions than answers," Turley said. "It does support [FBI Director Christopher] Wray’s testimony that there were no undercover agents in the crowd. I think that for others, there is going to be a lot of concern as to what the sources were doing there."

"Only three of them were told to be there. The question is, really, these other people," he continued. "We’ve had cases in the past where the defense has argued that sources and agents have been extremely active in pushing people towards criminal conduct. We saw those allegations raised in the Michigan case involving the governor there."

"I think that some defense attorneys may raise the question [as to] why they weren’t told, if they weren’t told, about the confidential sources that might have been involved tangentially with their own cases, because usually defense counsel says we want to know what asset, what personnel the government had there. So there is going to be questions of that kind, that arise," Turley stated.

"The treatment of the sources are also going to be a subject of continued debate," he added. "This is the department that had someone announce they were going to do a 'shock and awe,' they were going to go after everyone they could to deter future misconduct and, for these three, there was a lot less shock and awe involved in how they were treated."

Questions need to be answered

Professor Turley raised similar concerns about the presence of FBI sources during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, why they weren't prosecuted, and whether defense attorneys were informed about them in a thread of X posts, and wrote in part, "The IG found that most of these individuals were there without any instructions or requests from the government. However, as paid sources for the FBI, the question is what they did on that day."

He added, "The IG suggests that they were not engaged in the core criminal conduct prosecuted on that day. Yet, if revealed to the defense, including hundreds who pleaded guilty, defense counsel would not just take the government's word for what these sources did on that day."