Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is currently in fourth position, continued his month-long campaign of conspiracy theories by claiming, once again, that the violence that occurred inside the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, was orchestrated by a “inside job.”
“There is now clear evidence,” the 38-year-old entrepreneur wrote, “that there was at the very least entrapment of peaceful protestors, similar to the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot and countless other cases.” The number of undercover FBI agents present on January 6 remains a closely guarded secret. Capitol police, in an effort to disperse the peaceful gathering, used rubber bullets and explosives, which they subsequently permitted to enter the Capitol. The facts show that the previous story was wrong and that the deep state may do anything it wants to its political opponents—including staging a ‘insurrection’—so long as it is prepared to do so. You can’t help but notice it once you do.
It is intriguing to note the timing of Ramaswamy’s realization. Back when the future president-elect was still trying to shift the blame for the “disgraceful Capitol riot” onto the “downright abhorrent” actions of Trump, the use of (a handful of) rubber munitions and flash-bang devices by law enforcement that day was public knowledge, as was the selective removal of barricades in front of some approaching demonstrators. The 2020 scheme to abduct Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, appeared to be “an awful lot like entrapment” by January 2022. Ramaswamy continued to criticize the “Grand Old Party of Crybabies” in September 2022 for continuing to assert, despite the “lack of evidence of fraud,” that “the presidential election was stolen.”
A seemingly new piece of evidence is an apparent allusion to former FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono’s testimony before Congress in June 2023, in which he mentioned that “a handful” of agency informants were present on January 6, but he was unsure of the total number. According to D’Antuono, the FBI had been telling its informants to dissuade Trump supporters from going to the Capitol that day due to legitimate concerns that his “Stop the Steal” demonstration could escalate into a violent incident. He went on to say that the idea that the federal government was trying to inflame the protest was “farthest from the truth.”
Ramaswamy took some time to settle on “entrapment” as the main cause, regardless of the significance of one or even a handful of government officials among the 884 people convicted of crimes relating to January 6. While the candidate started to deflect blame from Trump in July 2023 (referring to it as “unproductive”), he continued to pin the blame on “pervasive censorship.” By the end of August, the candidate had gone against his “victimhood mythology” criticism from the previous year. He was now trying to spin his January 6 position in a way that made it sound like he would have made federal election reforms contingent on the transfer of presidential power if he had been Vice President Mike Pence at the time.
Among Ramaswamy’s stances is, to use the cynical words of National Review Editor in Chief Rich Lowry, “to avoid criticizing Trump at almost all costs.” His pardon promises extend to the 46th president and to “all peaceful, nonviolent January 6 protesters who were denied their constitutional due process rights.” In response to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump’s name from the ballot, he threatened to boycott the state’s primary election. Even though he has praised the term “vermin” and referred to Trump as a “excellent president,” he has dubbed his own campaign “America First 2.0.” In response to reports this week that Ramaswamy would not be allocating funds for the planned television advertisements in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump said on Truth Social, “He will, I am sure, Endorse me.”
Regardless of the political setting, Ramaswamy has been going on a “inside job” rampage this month, starting with this barrage of conspiratorial claims favored by Trump on the December 6th GOP meeting:
Does anyone else here share my belief that January 6, as we know it now, was an inside job? That the government lied to us for 20 years about Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11. That the Great Replacement Theory is not a right-wing conspiracy theory but a Democratic Party platform. That Big Tech stole the 2020 election. That the national security establishment stole Trump’s 2016 election, the one he won with certainty, by spreading the false Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
A week after that, he was the subject of a heated town hall discussion on CNN, when host Abby Phillip made him produce proof for his outrageous “inside job” accusation again and time again. In a series of patronizing comments that went something like, “I know this is very uncomfortable for you,” the candidate managed to rehash three pieces of information that were previously tweeted: first, that “there were federal law enforcement agents in that field,” second, that some security guards at the Capitol building extended the proverbial “red carpet” to the trespassers, and third, that the Whitmer plot proves the plan from January 6:
Reason has always been skeptical of the Michigan case, but there are several obvious distinctions between January 6 and the Michigan case—and it’s not simply that the Capitol Police aren’t actually the FBI. Both were elaborate schemes, but one involved a small group of undercover agents plotting an impossible crime, and the other was a large-scale public event with thousands of enthusiastic attendees. The FBI informants’ crucial role in the Whitmer conspiracy became apparent in the charging documents and subsequent articles. However, as C.J. Ciaramella noted in a September 2022 feature article, “no court records in the hundreds of prosecutions of January 6 rioters have mentioned the use of agents provocateurs.”
Could government agents have been involved in inciting violence on that chaotic day, only to see their efforts spiral out of control, leading to the tragic loss of one protester’s life, injuries to 114 police officers, and the hasty retreat of elected officials from the scene of what was supposed to be the certification of the presidential election? Without a doubt. According to Ciaramella, “It’s not an entirely unreasonable suspicion, given the bureau’s history of infiltrating and disrupting political movements.”
On the other hand, stating categorically that someone “manufacture[d]” a conspiracy to “take down…political opponents” is very different from merely inquiring about that day. Ramaswamy was criticizing the “victimhood mythology,” “sore losing,” and “conservative brand of victimhood” only fifteen months ago, and the second version is feeding that very thing. It adds fuel to the fire of apocalyptic populism in discourse, which sees violence as the inevitable conclusion. More than 200 Trump supporters freely marched to the Capitol from the Stop the Steal rally, trespassed on the grounds (either by walking in through a removed barrier or smashing through obstacles), and were subsequently convicted of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding officersand/or obstructing officers during a civil disorder.” This action deprives them of agency.
You can be wary of the FBI, angry about the harsh prosecutions and sentences that occurred on January 6, and believe that people convicted of nonviolent crimes on that day should not be jailed. But you don’t have to buy into an evidence-poor theory of government wrongdoing that happens to exonerate Trump and his most violently deluded followers. Given that half of Republicans blame the left for January 6, Ramaswamy’s open skepticism is a reasonable (albeit hideous) reaction to political incentives.
“Ramaswamy has sounded as pro-Trump as Trump’s own children, inveighed against an establishment that barely exists, played footsie with conspiracy theories, and courted controversies—both righteous and stupid—to gain the attention of the base of the party,” observed Lowry. “It’s dispiriting that such a shrewd and self-interested guy thinks this is how you rise within the Republican Party.”
The fact that he’s likely correct is much more disheartening.
Lisa Eclesworth is a notable and influential lifestyle writer. She is a mom of two and a successful homemaker. She loves to cook and create beautiful projects with her family. She writes informative and fun articles that her readers love and enjoy.
