The FBI conducted a virtual drill in the summer of 2020 on the potential for violence that could arise from election disputes, devising strategies such as using undercover informants and mass prosecutions for minor offenses, which were later utilized during the January 6th Capitol riot, Just the News reported Sunday night.

FBI Director Kash Patel submitted long-classified documents to Congress last week, providing new evidence that federal law enforcement was seriously concerned about potential violence following the 2020 election months in advance.

The documents reveal that the FBI's Boston field office led the drill and collected open-source information on potential violence from both left-wing anarchists and right-wing extremists.

An internal document from August 2020 concluded that "the FBI assesses that the threat from domestic violent extremists related to the 2020 election is likely to increase as the election approaches, even though many domestic violent extremists are currently focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest."

The document added that "'election-related threats' include, but are not limited to, threats or conspiracies related to candidates, campaign events, conventions, party offices, elected officials, voter registration events, and election results."

The memos also warned of the potential for foreign adversaries, such as Iran and China, to incite domestic violence within U.S. territory.

While many left-wing civil society groups, with the support of mainstream media, argued that the concept of foreign election interference should be dismissed as a mere "conspiracy theory," the memos indicate that the FBI considered it a real possibility, Just the News reported.

One memo, citing information from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, stated that "as of July 15, 2020, China, Iran, and particularly the Russian government appear to have extensively promoted illegal activities and violence in hypothetical scenarios where the outcome of the 2020 presidential election is contested, particularly through opportunistic social media influence operations."

"China and Iran sought to interfere in U.S. elections and social stability with the intent to undermine American democratic processes," it added.

The long-classified memos detailing the drill were briefly mentioned by former FBI Director Christopher Wray in congressional testimony following the January 6th riot in June 2021, but were not publicly released until January 6th of last year at the request of then-Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on Weaponization.

Loudermilk said the memos show that the FBI had far greater concerns about election disputes and potential violence than it admitted during the Biden administration, and failed to provide adequate warnings to Congress before the tragic events of January 6th.

"This document is evidence that the FBI, under Director Wray, predicted the possibility of an attack on the Capitol beginning in September 2020," he stated. "It also suggests that the FBI had established a network of confidential human sources (CHS) by infiltrating online chat forums prior to January 6th."

"From CHS reports and other intelligence, we have learned that the FBI had enough information to not only predict an attack on the Capitol but also to prepare for it. So why did the FBI not take measures to protect the U.S. Capitol?" he added.

FBI agents repeatedly refused to explain to Congress in detail how many informants were embedded in the crowd on the day of the riot, but subsequent statements from FBI agents revealed that approximately 24 informants infiltrated the crowd and over 250 agents were deployed for crowd control.

The Biden administration released a "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism" in June 2021, which echoed the conclusions of the August 2020 report but was a retrospective consideration of the January 6th riot.

A domestic terrorism document from the Biden administration claimed that "the intelligence community (IC) assesses that domestic violent extremists (DVEs), motivated by a range of ideologies and emboldened by recent political and social events in the United States, face an elevated threat to the U.S. homeland in 2021," citing the Capitol riot as an example.

However, the document did not identify the crucial differences between the Capitol riot and other domestic terrorism attacks. According to previous reports by Just the News, unlike perpetrators of previous deadly domestic terrorist attacks, none of the participants in the January 6th riot committed murder.

By Sung Ku Hong, Chief Editor of U.S. NNP / Special Correspondent NNP info@newsandpost.com