Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Jan. 6 Select Subcommittee, said this week his panel is focused on the number and role of paid informants present during the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations and whether intelligence from those sources was properly shared with law enforcement.
“One thing that we have learned, and this came on the tail end of the Biden administration, when their Department of Justice admitted that they had many, I mean, more than two dozen, paid informants embedded in the crowd,” Loudermilk said on Just the News, No Noise on Sept. 23, 2025. He added:
“With that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?”
Loudermilk further asked, “But of these informants, if they were paid to inform, what information did the FBI actually get from them? How did they not know that this was coming?” and asserted: “If they had that many paid informants, I believe they did know it was coming.”
Blaze Report: 275 Plainclothes Agents
Separately, The Blaze reported on Sept. 25, 2025, citing a senior congressional source, that the FBI told Congress it had 275 plainclothes agents in the Jan. 6 crowds. The Dallas Express has not independently verified that figure.
The outlet wrote that “Depending how one reads ‘undercover’ agents versus ‘plainclothes agents,’ both statements could be true,” and did not publicly identify its source.
A Dec. 12, 2024, press release from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General — about the FBI’s handling of confidential human sources (CHSs) — stated, “We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6.”
The same release said, “Our review determined that none of these FBI CHSs was authorized by the FBI 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.”
Background
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Loudermilk has accused the prior Jan. 6 Select Committee of failing to preserve all records, citing a forensics review that identified 117 deleted and encrypted files and a shortfall between an expected “4 terabytes” and “less than 3 terabytes” of archived data.
In a letter, he said the panel did not “archive all Committee records as required by House Rules” and sought “unedited and unredacted transcripts” from the White House and DHS.