A never-aired Fox News interview with the former Capitol Police chief, leaked last week, puts the lie to much of the January 6 ‘Insurrection’ (J6) narrative, still playing centre stage in US politics as a handy weapon against GOP contender Donald Trump. Chief Stephen Sund asserts in the Tucker Carlson interview that the J6 crowd included an unprecedented number of federal agents, that he was inexcusably denied threat intelligence and military support, and that ‘everything appears to be a cover-up’. Sund also notes Tucker was stood down as he was about to air the interview and asks, ‘Coincidence?’

While no one could or should excuse any of the violence that occurred that day, the notion that the chaos was anything like an armed insurrection has crumbled over time, Russia’s recent Wagner revolt with tanks and bombs showing what the real thing looks like. More than two years later, the relentless grind of a thousand emerging small points of evidence has built a persuasive case that J6 was a false flag event, driven by a weaponised Washington elite. Much as the Russia collusion hoax fell apart over time, so a steady accumulation of facts has undone much of the official narrative, the made-for-TV performance of the January 6 House Committee inquiry notwithstanding. The constant drip of evidence has been such that an April 2023 Rasmussen poll found 65 per cent believed intel agencies helped provoke the J6 riot, a view strongly echoed recently by popular, politically unaligned podcaster Joe Rogan. Nonetheless, the day itself must stand as one of then-speaker Nancy Pelosi’s and the Democrats’ greatest triumphs, allowing them both to mount an historic smear campaign against Trump and his followers, and also avoid confronting the 2020 election fraud evidence, as had been organised for Congress that day.

The enduring question is how much of it was a staged event, and how involved federal agencies were that day. This is where the Sund interview becomes important. Sund, who resigned the day after J6 under pressure from his boss Pelosi, complains that the House Committee never asked him to publicly testify, despite his leading the police response. He’s now written a best-seller, out last January, to tell his story.

Sund’s main contention is that he was deliberately handicapped in his efforts to defend the Capitol: key intelligence threat assessments were not shared with him; extra security resources were denied as was his request for thousands of National Guardsmen, although Trump had requested between 10 to 20,000 troops, according to Defense official Kash Patel. The Capitol was lightly defended by design; Sund was set up to fail.

On the question of federal provocateurs in the J6 crowd, Sund says he initially didn’t believe the FBI had agents there that day, because they hadn’t told him about it, per normal practice. Now wiser, he cites a government inquiry that there were 18 FBI operatives in the crowd, plus around 20 from a Department of Homeland Security agency. The 30-year police veteran says he’d never known of that many at a single event before.

Undercutting the official story of organised domestic terrorists planning to overthrow the election is the extraordinary saga of ex-marine Ray Epps, who is now suing Fox News over the characterisation of him as a federal agent provoking violence – which he denies. Epps is famously caught on video the day before the riot, urging protesters to enter the Capitol; men in the crowd start chanting: ‘Fed! Fed! Fed!’ Epps appears on the initial FBI Most Wanted lists for the riot but his photo later vanishes. A big man in red Trump cap and camel shirt, he turns up in later videos at critical junctures, such as the first breach of the Capitol barricades, where Epps confers with another red-capped protester who then helps break through the barricades. Yet Epps, unlike many others who did much less, has still never been charged.

The Arizonan claims he went to Washington to support Trump, but he leaves the White House area where Trump is about to speak, to take a half-hour walk down to the Capitol. He arrives there by 12.50pm, where he mingles with protesters before the first barricade breach. Between 12.45pm and 1.07pm two pipe bombs are found, one each at Republican and Democrat National Headquarters. Sund later describes the pipe bombs as a diversionary tactic, which redirects police resources. At 12.50pm the attack on the Capitol perimeter barricades begins. Sund cites the timing of the pipe bombs discovery and the breach of the barricades as evidence that the attack was coordinated. With the barricades gone, protesters who stayed to hear Trump arrived at the Capitol unaware that they were now trespassing on Capitol grounds.

At 2.12pm that day Epps texts his nephew, who has asked if he is safe, saying: ‘I was in the front with a few others. I also orchestrated it.’

Subsequent investigations into the pipe bombs lead nowhere, although both buildings are surrounded by CCTV cameras. Shades of Epstein, the footage turns out to be grainy and partial. And although a likely bomber is seen speaking on a phone, at a precise location the night before, his phone location data, wouldn’t you know it, just can’t be found.

Years of stonewalling and bad faith behaviour by the powers-that-be add to the sense of hidden guilt. Many thousands of hours of Capitol CCTV footage have never been released. It took the FBI nearly a year to admit no guns were recovered from the Capitol grounds – meaning no protesters were armed. While FBI leadership has consistently stymied congressional quizzing about federal agents, using ‘ongoing investigations’ or ‘protecting sources and methods’ to block sunlight, trials of J6 defendants have exposed informants. For example, a court filing for charged Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola details at least 40 informants or agents from bodies such as DC Metro Police, the FBI and Homeland Security. Conservative site Gateway Pundit estimates around 100 operatives were involved on the day, and last month ran a story entitled ‘20+ documented reports of Feds in the J6 crowds’. The New York Times reported during the trial of five Proud boys that the FBI had up to eight informants in the group.

Another former senior Capitol police officer, ex-Lieutenant Tarik Johnson, is speaking out on Twitter for ‘J6 Justice’ in the wake of Sund going public. He believes that both officers and protesters were set up, and that intelligence was withheld. This story has a way to run.