FBI Boston field office (Credit: public domain)
The FBI conducted a tabletop exercise in summer 2020 that imagined what sort of violence might ensue in a contested presidential election that year, devising strategies like undercover informants and mass prosecutions for minor crimes that it would later use with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, documents obtained by Just the News show.
FBI Director Kash Patel turned over the long-secret memos to Congress last week, providing fresh evidence that federal law enforcement was acutely concerned for months ahead of time about the potential for violence in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
The memos show the bureau’s Boston office led the tabletop exercise and culled open-source intelligence on the potential for violence from both left-leaning anarchists to right-leaning extremists.
“The FBI assesses domestic violent extremist (DVE) threats related to the 2020 elections likely will increase as the election approaches, despite the current focus of many DVEs on the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest,” an August 2020 memo concluded. “‘Election-related threats’ include but are not limited to those against candidates, campaign events, presidential conventions, party offices, elected officials, voter registration events, and threats or plots related to electoral outcomes,” the memo added.
The memos also warned that foreign enemies like Iran and China were likely to foment domestic violence on U.S. soil.
Many left-leaning advocacy groups insisted, with the assistance of legacy media, that the concept of foreign election interference should be dismissed as mere “conspiracy theories” and disregarded, but the memos show the FBI considered it a real possibility.
“As of 15 July 2020, the Governments of the People’s Republic of China, Iran, and especially Russia appear to have broadly encouraged illegal activity and violence in the hypothetical event that 2020 Presidential election results are disputed, especially via the use of opportunistic, social media-enabled influence operations,” one memo said, citing information from the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
“China and Iran were motivated to interfere with US elections and civil stability by an interest in undermining US democratic processes,” it added.
You can read the memos here.
The long-secret memos memorializing the exercise were briefly referenced by former FBI Director Christopher Wray in June 2021 testimony before Congress in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, but were only turned over for the first time after a request last year from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on January 6. (Read more: Just the News, 2/8/2026) (Archive)