How MAGA’s Rewriting of the 'Fedsurrection' Narrative Exemplifies a Dangerous Trend

A case study in how dis-info actors manipulate language to make any and all evidence fit unfalsifiable assertions.

On Dec. 12th, 2024—the D.O.J Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report evaluating the FBI’s role in intelligence gathering and handling of Confidential Human Sources (CHS) leading up to certification day for the 2020 presidential election.

The report touched on several aspects in which the FBI was both functionally successful and in which it failed to adequately meet its own standards of due diligence. It also made clear that there was no evidence of undercover FBI agents being present within the Capitol crowd, and that none of the CHSs who were at the riot were authorized by the FBI to (or encourage others to) break any laws.

In a saner information environment, this disclosure might have been seen as a decisive counter to the "fedsurrection" narrative—a conspiracy theory claiming that federal operatives orchestrated or incited the events of Jan. 6th. Then redirecting attention toward the report's legitimate critiques of the FBI’s intelligence practices.

Unfortunately, we don’t exist in that saner space, but there are still things to be learned in analyzing how this conversation became hijacked by MAGA affiliate attempts to rewrite the story on their own conspiracy.

A FLUID NARRATIVE

If you relied on MAGA thought leaders rather than reading the OIG report—or even its brief executive summary—your understanding of the findings would likely be unrecognizable compared to a plain reading of the text.

Under the framing of figures like Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy, the report wasn’t an exoneration of the FBI, but proof that the conspiratorial suspicions of MAGA supporters were justified all along.

Screenshot of J.D. Vance’s Post on X

Screenshot of Vivek Ramaswamy’s Post on X

This retelling hinges on a selective interpretation of the OIG's findings, primarily emphasizing the presence of multiple FBI CHSs in D.C. on Jan. 6th, while entirely reframing the “fedsurrection” theory into a set of supposedly innocent questions about the possible presence and roles of informants among the Capitol riot crowds that the mainstream media had unfairly labelled as dangerous conspiracies.

Let’s start by addressing the CHSs. According to the OIG, 26 FBI informants were present in D.C. on Jan. 6th. Of these, 17 entered the restricted area surrounding the Capitol, and 4 entered the Capitol building itself. However, only 3 of these CHSs were in D.C. under active FBI direction.

The remaining 23 were there of their own initiative, entirely disconnected from any FBI operation. Crucially—as mentioned earlier—none of the informants were authorized to enter the Capitol, break laws, or encourage illegal activity from others in the crowd.

In fact, the OIG report indicates that the FBI was unaware many of those CHSs were even present at the time:

• “The WFO did not know that a total of 26 CHSs would be in DC for the events of January 6 because only 4 field offices had informed the WFO or FBI Headquarters that CHSs under the relevant field office’s jurisdiction—5 CHSs in total—would be traveling to DC on January 6."

It’s important to note here exactly what a CHS is, because they aren’t analogous to an undercover officer or an employee of the FBI as those who enjoy playing fast and loose with these terms might want you to believe.

According to Justice Department guidelines, a Confidential Human Source (CHS) is defined as:

• “Confidential Human Source (CHS): Any individual who is believed to be providing useful and credible information to the FBI for any authorized information collection activity, and from whom the FBI expects or intends to obtain additional useful and credible information in the future, and whose identity, information, or relationship with the FBI warrants confidential handling."

To be identified as a CHS present among the Jan. 6th crowd, these individuals didn’t necessarily need to be actively engaged in an FBI operation at the time. Their inclusion in the OIG’s count simply reflects their past or potential future relationship with the Bureau.

This distinction, however, is conveniently omitted in conspiracy-driven retellings, which blur the lines between CHSs, undercover agents, and direct FBI involvement.

This is intentional, serving as a way to obscure the actual findings of the OIG report. The fact that there were no undercover agents and only three CHSs were in D.C. at the FBI’s direction—none of which were tasked with illegal activity—directly contradicts the conspiratorial claims that federal operatives instigated the riot, yet somehow it’s still used as a means of arguing how “correct” promoters of the conspiracy were all along.

Which brings us back to the second feature necessary for this retelling. When Ramaswamy and Vance make statements like “If you uttered the facts in this IG report last year, you were labeled a “conspiracy theorist””, they are narrowing the aperture on the magnitude of the actual claims core to the “fedsurrection” conspiracy.

This attempt at diminishing the claims scope immediately falls apart when you consider the fact that it’s actually been public knowledge that there were CHSs present in the crowd on Jan. 6th for years. For instance, in 2021, the New York Times published this article discussing how one proud boy FBI informant texted his FBI handler in real time about the events of the riot.

Interestingly—according to the records the Times acquired for the story—the handler appeared not to have been aware the building had been breached as the text exchange was ongoing, undermining the idea that the violence at the capitol was preplanned by the FBI.

According to the story Vance and Ramaswamy would have us believe, the Times would have been tarred and feathered as a conspiracy outlet for publishing this information, but that clearly isn’t what happened. This is because the problem was never just about people postulating on whether any CHSs were present at the Capitol on Jan 6th.

It’s also worth considering that since these informants tend to be members of extremist groups that the FBI has found pertinent to keep an eye on—with several of these very groups designated for surveillance such as the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys being present among the Jan 6th crowd—it’s not really surprising that there would be some number of CHSs present without requiring FBI coordination.

The narrowing of what is claimed by the “fedsurrection” narrative serves as a means of selectively reframing the conversation, focusing on sanitized, less radical interpretations of what was initially claimed, while quietly sidestepping the broader—and often more egregious—allegations made at the height of the conspiracy theory’s popularity.

Allegations that the FBI deliberately infiltrated groups to provoke violence or orchestrated the events as part of a broader plot to entrap political opponents. That people like Ray Epps—an older Trump supporter present on Jan 6th—were actually government assets embedded into the protest to incite violence despite no strong evidence of this being the case ever being presented.

This wasn’t some niche group of people pushing these accusations either—these claims were bolstered by major figures such as Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Donald Trump himself.

It’s important not to allow the record on these things be manipulated, because when narratives are allowed to function in such a fluid manner, we end up losing grasp of our most important mechanisms of public accountability.

CONSPIRACIES AREN’T DESTROYED, THEY’RE TRANSFORMED

What I’ve identified here with the “fedsurrection” narrative isn’t an isolated event. Conspiracy theories by their very nature are ideas in a constant state of flux.

They function as collaborative conceptual complexes often adopting small variations into themselves with each new person the theory enraptures through the sensational story they weave.

Like a memetic virus, as enough these variations amass the conspiracy will break off into differing strains with their own unique facets—finding community spaces in which their specific flavor of conceptual infection is the most fit to propagate itself.

This on its own is already troublesome—as it makes combatting the spread of these fallacious ideas all the more complicated. However, things become even more disheartening with the response received when you do manage to present silver bullet evidence standing in contradiction to most of the claims presented in one of these conspiracy complexes (such as in the case of the OIG Report’s findings).

It’s in these cases that a conspiracy does not simply dissolve under the weight of contradictory evidence; instead, it jumps strands to find whatever alternative format of the conspiracy present in the greater complex is most fit to survive within the updated informational environment. All while its promoters pretend as though that particular strand of thought was what most believers in the broader conspiracy complex believed all along.

Consider the Q-Anon “Pizzagate” conspiracy—a narrative that originated with the idea that a secret cabal of high-profile elites was running a child trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant’s basement, looking to awkward communications released in the Podesta Email leak (which Q-Anoners believed was code-speak) as evidence. This had dire consequences, eventually leading one man to show up at said pizza restaurant with a rifle.

Despite this initial form of the conspiracy being widely discredited (the pizza restaurant in question didn’t even have a basement), the theory didn’t vanish—it evolved.

Comet Ping Pong, the Washington based pizza restaurant that became the center of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. ​Photograph by Alex Wong / Getty

Its believers shifted focus to new variations, subtly adapting their claims to include broader allegations of elite child trafficking rings, which became untethered from the original narrative but still resonated with the same emotional core.

When Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest and subsequent highly speculated upon death occurred, it was taken as vindication by “Pizzagate” adherents, not for the specific claims about a pizzeria but for the overarching suspicion of powerful figures conspiring in secret.

This illustrates a key dynamic in conspiratorial thinking: partial validation of peripheral ideas is framed as proof of the entire narrative. Epstein’s case had nothing to do with coded emails or pizza shops, but the existence of his trafficking network was enough to reframe “Pizzagate” as metaphorically “true.”

Its proponents sidestepped their most outlandish claims, quietly dropped demonstrably false details, and shifted the goalposts to reframe themselves as prescient truth-tellers.

Similarly, the “lab leak” theory regarding COVID-19’s origins followed this same pattern (a subject I’ve written about on several occasions). Early suggestions that the virus emerged from a Wuhan laboratory were met with skepticism due to lack of evidence from many of the claims, as well as their association with xenophobic rhetoric.

Over time, as legitimate investigations considered the possibility, some proponents of the lab-leak theory claimed victory—not by proving their earlier assertions but by reinterpreting them to align with emerging discussions.

The conspiracy morphed into something that better fit the mainstream discourse, allowing its champions to appear vindicated even when their initial claims had been far more extreme and reliant on poor evidence.

SELF-FULFILLING PARANOIA

These transformations are not benign; by bending every development to fit a preordained conclusion, conspiracy theories perpetuate a self-fulfilling cycle of distrust. The act of debunking itself becomes proof of suppression; every government report, academic study, or investigative article attempting to clarify the record is rebranded as an artifact of the conspiracy.

This pattern doesn’t just erode public trust—it weaponizes it. Figures like Ramaswamy and Vance don’t merely exploit conspiracy theories; they actively sustain them, knowing that these narratives are powerful tools for mobilizing political loyalty.

Their selective reinterpretations of reports like the OIG’s serve as deliberate strategies to keep their base enraptured in a cycle of grievance and suspicion. This strategy works because it capitalizes on a profound cultural truth: once trust is broken, it’s incredibly difficult to repair.

When a public figure convinces their audience that all institutions are corrupt, every institutional denial of wrongdoing becomes suspect. This weaponized skepticism metastasizes, turning ordinary civic processes—like intelligence oversight or election administration—into battlegrounds for conspiratorial thinking.

This phenomenon helps explain why conspiracy theories like Pizzagate endure even after their most absurd claims are debunked.

It’s not about the specifics of a basement that doesn’t exist or a slice of pizza that was never served—it’s about the broader sense of alienation and powerlessness that these stories tap into. The details are disposable; the underlying distrust is the core product.

Worse still is how these conspiracies steal oxygen from what could be more fruitful discourse, the OIG report for instance contained valuable critiques of FBI intelligence practices that have been entirely overshadowed by conspiracy rhetoric.

The report highlights deficiencies in how the Bureau handled information leading up to Jan. 6, including lapses in coordination and surveying of field office that left potential gaps in their understanding of threats, issues which warrant scrutiny and discussion.

However, instead of fostering a conversation about how to improve the nation’s intelligence-gathering apparatus, the discourse is instead consumed by debates over fantastical claims of FBI-instigated insurrection. This is the true cost of self-fulfilling paranoia: it not only undermines trust in public institutions but also derails the possibility of constructive reform.

When every fact is twisted into evidence of a broader cover-up, genuine failures within systems of governance remain unaddressed, perpetuating the very dysfunction that conspiracy theorists claim to oppose.

The challenge before us is to resist the gravitational pull of these narratives, to focus on the facts and insist on the value of constructive discourse. Because in the end, the strength of our society depends on our ability to discern truth from fiction—and to ensure that truth has the last word.