However, the tips that they submitted to the FBI “fell into a black hole at the bureau.” The sheer volume information coming in was overwhelming, with “a seemingly insurmountable digital pile of evidence that grew each day, a database of tips that would grow into the hundreds of thousands, and a long list of criminal suspects spread out all over the country.” Additionally, it did not help that January 6 was in many ways a digitally-abetted crime, and the Department of Justice as a whole is a helplessly analog agency, its technological capabilities barely reaching the twenty-first century. After all, the FBI was an organization that initially sent out its list of most wanted rioters via PDF, and required many tips be submitted via USB drives rather than email. The agency was woefully unprepared to handle the sheer scope of the crime: Even though “nearly every field office in the country was involved in the investigation,” Reilly writes, the FBI was “drowning.”
Meanwhile, “a sizable percentage” at the bureau was sympathetic to the group that laid siege to the Capitol, underscoring what Reilly identifies as the right-wing leanings of the FBI agent population. He cites one email from a former FBI employee who identified bureau officials that were “politically aligned with the president and didn’t see what the big deal was” about January 6.
Collaboration between the FBI and the sleuths often depended on the sheer persistence of the sleuths. Reilly outlines the investigative work of a hunter named Joan, who was able to identify a rioter named Brent Bozell IV. Even after speaking with an FBI agent about Bozell, it took weeks for him to be arrested—and that only happened when two people who knew Bozell turned him in. But Joan continued to keep an eye out for Bozell, and identified two more instances of him on the front lines of the siege. She shared the new information with federal authorities. The next day, prosecutors presented evidence to a federal grand jury; the jury indicted Bozell on seven counts, including new felony charges inspired by Joan’s discoveries. As Joan joked to Reilly, Bozell “probably would’ve gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for these meddling sleuths.”