Sen. Mike Lee perpetuated an unfounded conspiracy theory that federal agents or informants were among the rioters on Jan. 6 and that one may have flashed a law enforcement badge during the attack (in reality, it was a vape).
In two posts to X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend, the Republican indulged in a MAGA disinformation campaign.
Lee quoted a post from former Jan. 6 committee member Liz Cheney that contained footage of the Capitol attack, writing, “Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times.
You made sure we saw that—and nothing else. It’s the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting. Nice try.”
He then added, “P.S. How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us).”
Then on Saturday, Lee quoted a post from a Republican former West Virginia legislator Derrick Evans who asked if an image from a Jan. 6 video inside the Capitol shows a rioter “flashing a badge?”
“If so, this would prove there were undercover federal agents disguised as MAGA,” Evans wrote.
@cdarwin this is one of those cases where the theory persists because of reluctance to actually definitively answer the question.
Yeah I know it's annoying for officials to have to deal with this kind of thing, but that's part of governance in a democratic system. The people ask annoying questions, but that's how people are, and officials need to be responsive to them because if they aren't then these theories grow in the vacuum.
