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GOP Rep. Clay Higgins pushes viral ‘ghost buses’ Jan. 6 conspiracy while warning FBI Director ‘your day is coming’

Higgins did not provide much evidence to back up his claim.

Photo of Marlon Ettinger

Marlon Ettinger

Congressman Clay Higgins speaking (l) Washington DC, USA Jan 6 2021 Riots in DC (r)

Republican Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) told FBI director Christopher Wray that his “day is coming” after Wray denied any role by the FBI in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

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Higgins claimed at a Homeland Security Committee meeting on Wednesday that “our government’s highest levels of law enforcement coordinate organized campaigns of weaponized oppression, harassment, investigation, arrest and prosecution and imprisonment of free Americans. That … is the primary threat our homeland indeed faces today.”

“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by the FBI’s sources and or agents, the answer is an emphatic ‘no,’” Wray, a former President Donald Trump appointee, said in response to questioning from Higgins.

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“Do you know what a ghost vehicle is?” Higgins asked next. “You’re the director of the FBI, you certainly should. Do you know what a ghost bus is?”

When Wray said he didn’t, Higgins, a former police officer, explained that it was a common term in law enforcement.

“It’s a vehicle that’s used for secret purposes. It’s painted over,” Higgins said, pointing to a photo of buses he claimed were the first to arrive at Union Station in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6.

“These buses are nefarious in nature, and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters deployed into our capitol on Jan. 6, and your day is coming Mr. Wray,” Higgins finished.

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The FBI infiltration claim is at odds with how most MAGA influencers responded before and immediately after the riot broke out. 

On since-deleted social media posts, attendees and supporters cheered the invasion of the Capitol. Then, as backlash spread, they began blame it on antifa infiltrators and a government-orchestrated conspiracy.

The narrative of antifa infiltration was whipped up in viral posts across Twitter, Gab, TheDonald, Telegram, and other social media.

“Although large sections of this content have been deleted during the post-Jan. 6 purge by social media companies, much of it remains as snippets of threads—the rest can often be found in the archived internet,” reported The Odd Post.

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The Odd Post also traced the claim about so-called ghost buses to a video where a man with a face tattoo and a denim jacket said that state troopers escorted unmarked buses carrying antifa members “front and center” to the riot. 

The claim of “ghost buses” appears to have metastasized in the right wing, going from antifa infiltrators hoping to frame Trump supporters to an out-and-out move by the FBI to bring the buses full of people into D.C. to cause chaos.

Higgins, however, did not provide much in the way of evidence that the FBI was behind the buses in his testimony.

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