Judicial Watch just dropped a massive trove of body-worn camera footage from the January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol. Over 1,000 hours across 1,630 videos from the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department are now public after years of legal fights.
The release came after Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit back in June 2024. You can find the full collection on their site.
Independent journalist and January 6 defendant Tommy Tatum started digging through the footage right away. What he found in one clip is already sparking fresh questions.
Video:
In bodycam footage from unit X6039BF3H, captured around 5:14 p.m. that afternoon, an officer can be heard on radio traffic asking about a large FBI presence. The audio is a bit muffled from background noise, but the key line comes through clearly enough: “Do you have 350 FBI agents there right at this moment?”
The discussion appears to reference FBI agents already on scene or ready to deploy during the height of the day’s events. Tatum posted the clip Monday evening, and it’s circulating fast.
This detail stands out because it directly undercuts earlier official statements. Back in July 2023, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress he did not believe undercover FBI agents were present at or around the Capitol that day. He said he was “not sure there were undercover agents on scene.”
Later developments added more layers. In September 2025, the FBI acknowledged it had 274 plainclothes agents in the crowds on January 6. That number was significantly higher than earlier reports had suggested. A senior congressional source noted that embedding countersurveillance personnel at large events is standard FBI practice, but the late disclosure still raised eyebrows.
A DOJ Inspector General report from December 2024 had stated there was no evidence of undercover FBI employees in the protest crowds or at the Capitol. Yet other court documents and investigations have pointed to multiple confirmed incidents involving federal, state, and local operatives mixed into the Trump supporter crowds that day. Some reports have referenced at least 40 undercover operatives connected to groups like the Proud Boys alone.
The newly released bodycam audio doesn’t resolve every question, but it does show that at least some D.C. Metro officers on the ground were aware of a substantial FBI contingent. That conversation happened in real time amid the chaos.
People watching the full footage releases are pointing out how these details keep emerging long after the initial narratives were locked in. The scale of federal involvement, the timing of deployments, and the gap between public statements and internal communications are all back under the microscope.
The videos are still being reviewed by researchers and journalists. More clips like this one are likely to surface as others go through the 1,000-plus hours.
For now, this particular exchange is getting attention because it comes straight from police radio traffic on the day itself. It’s one more piece in a story that officials once insisted was straightforward but that keeps revealing new layers with every fresh release of evidence.
What do you make of officers on the scene discussing that many FBI agents? The full Judicial Watch archive is open if you want to check the footage yourself.
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