The ATF documents obtained by Judicial Watch run 88 pages, which includes a number of screenshots from a text group chat of various ATF officials on January 6 called the “January 7 Intel Chain.” The first thing we notice about the group chat in question is how nearly every single name is redacted—not an uncommon feature, to be sure—in FOIAd documents from three-letter agencies. Ashan Benedict’s name, interestingly, is one of the very few that is not redacted. Note that on January 6, 2021, Benedict was a senior ATF official as the Special Agent in Charge for all of Washington, D.C. (hence his presence in the FOIA documents).

Interestingly, the text chain in the FOIA docs begins right at the decisive time of 12:47 p.m. on January 6, a mere 7 minutes after Karlin Younger claims she stumbled upon the first “RNC pipe bomb” in a back alley by the Capitol Hill Club and a mere 5 minutes before the first “Ray Epps” breach of the West Perimeter of the Capitol near the peace monument—a breach whose fed-saturated and questionable elements we chronicle in exhaustive detail in our now classic Ray Epps series.