Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a House hearing Wednesday he did not know whether there were government informants present at the Capitol on January 6 – after a former top FBI official testified there were informants there and the feds had to scramble to determine how many.

Garland repeated his answer when getting grilled by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Massie asked the AG how many government agents or assets were present on or around January 6, also referencing his own earlier inquiry about people ‘agitating in the crowd.’ 

‘I don’t know the answer to that question,’ Garland replied.

‘You don’t know how many there were, or there were none,’ Massie pressed.

‘I don’t know the answer to either of those questions. ‘If there were any, I don’t know how many. I don’t know whether there are any,’ Garland said.

‘I think you may have just perjured your self,’ said Massie, who is the subject of a documentary about the Kentucky farm where he lives off the grid.

‘You want to say that again, that you don’t know that there were any?’

‘I have no personal knowledge on this matter,’ Garland proceeded.

Then, Massie brought up a conspiracy theory about Ray Epps, who sued Fox News for defamation over claims he was a government agent.

Massie then brought up Epps’ indictment on a misdemeanor charge, calling it a ‘joke’ at a time when he said Garland and the DOJ are ‘sending grandmas to prison.’ 

He then went on to complain about some of the sentences handed down for people convicted of taking part in the riot at the Capitol when lawmakers gathered to count the electoral votes. 

He also referenced the 22-year sentence of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was arrested before January 6 for burning a church Black Lives Matter banner, and who wasn’t at the Capitol. 

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Donald Trump loyalist who may force a vote to try to take down Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also hammered Garland on January 6 – but did so after a clash over China, and didn’t end up getting an answer.

‘So, did the FBI lose count of the number of paid informants on January 6th?’ Gaetz asked him, immediately after accusing Hunter Biden of engaging in ‘bribery’ with Chinese officials.

‘Let me answer your question about China,’ Garland responded.

‘I only get five minutes, Gaetz said, pointing to a time limit. ‘You’ve already sort of I think screwed the pooch on China. So on January 6 did you lose count of the number of federal assets, did you lose count and order an audit?’ he asked.

That prompted top Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler to respond that Gaetz’s time had expired. ‘Let him answer the question,’ Nadler intoned.

That prompted a Garland response dealing only with the China threat. 

The fireworks at the oversight hearing came after the release of an explosive transcript where a former assistant director at the FBI testified that there were paid government informants present on January 6 – although some evidently assisted the government on drug or other cases and came to DC without the knowledge of their handlers.

Steven D’Antuono, former assistant director-in-charge of the Washington Field Office, told the House Judiciary Committee that confidential sources attended and other informants went on their own accord.

He said the Washington Field Office knew ahead of time that some undercover operatives would be at the Stop the Steal rally before the Capitol storming.  

There were so many, the FBI ‘lost track’ of some of them and had to perform an audit later to determine how many were there.

D’Antuono said behind closed doors that at least one informant was in contact with his FBI handler when he entered the Capitol.

The informant, from Kansas City was ‘trying to stop some of the action happening and they left or whatnot … but I’m not sure if that handler knew that he was coming or not,’ D’Antuono said.

In that instance, ‘I believe the case agent knew he was coming because I think he told them, if I recall,’ he said.

Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan asked D’Antuono whether there were ‘known or unknown Confidential Human Sources (CHSes) at the riot’.

 ‘Well, I think they were both,’ he responded.

Jordan replied: ‘So, you now know that there were CHSes that the FBI knew ahead of time were going to be here on January 6 and that there were also some unknown CHSes who, on their own accord, decided to come here on January 6?’

‘That is my belief, yeah,’ D’Antuono responded.

He amplified his comments by explaining how informants might have ended up there. Typically, an FBI field office will notify a jurisdiction when one of their informants is headed there. 

‘Now, [Washington Field Office] may have had a CHS in the crowd that was a drug CHS, violent crime CHS, that didn’t tell us they were going, right. People have a citizen’s right to go and protest. We’re not going to stop them from doing that. As you well know, we had FBI agents there. We had other government officials. People are there, right. That’s — I firmly believe that’s their citizen’s right, right,’ he said.

‘So I think we asked headquarters to do a poll or put out something to people saying was any CHSes involved. And I think that’s when we started getting responses back,’ he said.

The clash over January 6 comes days after former President Trump on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ refused to say whether he ordered law enforcement to protect the Capitol, but said he ‘behaved so well.’

Gaetz and other Trump allies have tried to claim left-wing Antifa instigated the riot, where more than 1,000 people have been convicted after swarms of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Trump himself also blamed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for security failures in his recent ‘Meet the Press’ interview.

Donald Trump’s legal team is considering a brash move that would put Republican members of Congress on the stand in his defense by questioning them about their own January 6 objections, DailyMail.com has learned.

The maneuver would have Trump’s legal team query lawmakers who cast votes objecting to the certification of Joe Biden‘s win, such as Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, as part of his federal criminal trial in Washington, D.C.

It would be a bid to persuade potential jurors that Trump was not an outlier when pushing election fraud, because he represented a widespread view within his party.

‘They were essential to the recognition of objections, because you had to have a representative from the Senate and from the House [to trigger a floor debate]. 

‘So the senators’ objections were obviously important, very important,’ a source familiar with Trump’s legal team’s thinking told DailyMail.com.

The move – which would have to be approved by a federal judge and could face objections from prosecutors – could allow the former president to cover his own post-election conduct by having his lawyer question the likes of Hawley and Cruz.

The pair were among the members of the GOP instrumental in setting up a political clash in Congress as Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

The effort wouldn’t involve probing lawmakers about why they voted the way they did – a posture that could touch on separation of powers issues and the Constitution’s ‘Speech or Debate’ clause.

But it could examine ‘what objections that you see right up until and including J6 [January 6] and to the extent that elected officials have legitimate objections, it’s hard to criticize the president for having the same objections or similar ones,’ said the source.

‘So that would really be the theory and it would go to the bona fides of having objections right through the J6 period,’ the source added.

If sustained, it could have political implications beyond the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. by providing a platform for Republicans facing their own reelections, and giving them a chance to reinforce their loyalty to Trump, the who is leading all Republicans by a wide margin in presidential polls. 

Trump’s team believes it can demonstrate that in ‘in the political environment right through January 6 elected officials had very good faith objections, based on what they were seeing as anomalies or unlawful acts with respect to the election,’ said the source.

Even some Republican officials who would later state that Biden won the election spoke publicly before January 6 about fraud allegations. (Former Trump AG Bill Barr, who told the House January 6 committee fraud claims put forward by Trump’s lawyers were ‘bull**** had before the election raised concerns about mail-in ballots).

The tactic could include examining efforts by a group of senators, including Hawley and Cruz, to rally fellow senators to delay certification during Trump’s final days to further probe election fraud claims, even after they were tossed by a series of courts. 

Former Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro, who is currently on trial for defying a congressional subpoena, described the delay tactic as the ‘Green Bay Sweep.’

The move to bring in elected Republican witnesses could very well extend to the state legislative level – where many Republican lawmakers also voted objections during the state certification process, putting forward some of the same fraud claims as members of Trump’s 2020 advisors who are now facing criminal charges.

Those claims went in concert with the ‘fake electors’ scheme, where states that voted for Biden sent slates of alternate Trump electors to Washington.

It comes in a blockbuster trial where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has warned Trump’s lawyers she wants to try to keep politics at bay – dismissing appeals to Trump’s busy schedule and comparing him to a professional athlete who must face charges despite having a game schedule.

She set a trial date for Trump of March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, prompting howls of complaint from Trump’s lawyers about the need to sift through 12 million documents the government provided through the discovery process amid a complex case with historic implications.

Lawmakers including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have fought efforts to be dragged into court cases related to Trump’s election overturn effort. Graham, who voted to certify votes from contested states, battled efforts to compel his testimony in Georgia, where Trump and 18 other defendants are charged with a racketeering conspiracy related to the election overturn effort there.

The Supreme Court denied his effort to block a subpoena, but that came after a federal judge ruled there would be protections against his being questioned about his legislative function, due to the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause.   

Although elected lawmakers being pulled into judicial matters, there is a good argument that they would have to comply with a subpoena to appear, according to the source.

But unlike some of those other instances, there is reason to believe that congressional Republicans would relish the opportunity to make headlines testifying as witnesses for Trump. Party members stood by Trump during two impeachments, sought to discredit the House January 6 Committee, and then probed President Biden and his family. Some top House members with investigative panels say they intend to probe Special Counsel Jack Smith.

‘My sense is that many of those elected officials … would welcome the opportunity to testify on these important issues and confirm the reasons why they had objected to aspects of the election,’ said the source.

Their testimony would seek to counter the narrative sketched by Smith when announcing Trump’s indictment last month for conspiring to defraud the U.S., conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding.

Smith called it an ‘unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy’ that was ‘fueled by lies’ targeted at obstructing the electoral count.

The government’s burden ‘is to show that the president acted corruptly, which is to some extent not a clearly defined term, but would suggest that he was he was acting for simply an obstructive purpose unrelated to any proper government function. And if we have elected representatives say, “Hey, I was just doing my job. I raised these objections” … it’s kind of hard to say that President Trump was acting with a corrupt intent,’ the source added.

The DOJ could try to object, and Judge Chutkan could try to impose limitations on the number of witnesses. During a hearing last month, she said both sides have estimated a trial could take four to six weeks. Calling dozens of witnesses, and wrangling over securing their testimony, could delay matters further or soak up more court time.

The objectors could testify about their fraud claims, which were repeatedly rejected by courts, but also about state changes to election laws in the run-up to the election amid the pandemic.  

Trump advisor Peter Navarro found GUILTY of contempt of Congress for defying January 6 subpoena

• Navarro now faces up to one year in prison for refusing to cooperate with the congressional subpoena 
• U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that executive privilege argument did not apply to Navarro
• ‘I am willing to go to prison to settle this issue,’ Navarro said outside the courthouse Thursday

By Kelly Laco, Executive Editor Of Politics For Dailymail.Com and Associated Press

Published: 16:18 EDT, 7 September 2023 | Updated: 18:11 EDT, 7 September 2023

January Jones, 45, shows off her toned figure in a black string bikini as she relaxes in the backyard of her Los Angeles home

By Heidi Parker For Dailymail.com

Published: 15:38 EDT, 23 June 2023 | Updated: 15:52 EDT, 23 June 2023