On June 15, Tucker Carlson took to his influential Fox News show to spread a conspiracy theory that FBI agents were among the crowd of rioters that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, as part of a plot to arrest the rioters and squash “political dissent.” 

Carlson adopted the theory from the right-wing outlet Revolver News, which is run by former Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie, who was fired in 2018 after appearing on a panel with a white nationalist.

“Strangely, some people who participated in the riot haven’t been charged. Look at the documents. The government calls these people ‘unindicted co-conspirators.’ What does that mean? It means that in potentially every case, they’re F.B.I. operatives,” Carlson told his 3 million viewers.

It’s a clear cut example of how disinformation works. Dr. Jennifer Mercieca, a professor of rhetoric and public affairs at Texas A&M University, did a blow-by-blow analysis of how Tucker Carlson’s segment was designed to capitalize on viewers’ fears and pull them into his conspiracy theory.