It’s been quite the week in our nation’s capital, and we can now add suspicious mass transit options to the latest explanations as to why the violence of January 6 was not the fault of Donald Trump’s MAGA faithful.
Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins floated a questionable theory this week while grilling FBI Director Christopher Wray before the Homeland Security Committee. Higgins insisted that an image of a random pair of white buses with no rear markings inferred nefarious goings-on, specifically at the nation’s top law enforcement agency. Here’s the transcript, lovingly typed out by Vice:
Higgins berated Wray for not knowing what a “ghost bus” is, and claimed the term is common parlance among people who know about cop stuff.
“Do you know what a ghost vehicle is?” Higgins asked. “Director of the FBI certainly should. You know what a ghost bus is?”
Wray seemed nonplussed.
“I’m not sure I’ve used that term before,” he said.
“Okay,” said Higgins, skeptically. “Pretty common in law enforcement. It’s a vehicle that’s used for secret purposes. It’s painted over.”
Higgins then pointed at a billboard showing a nondescript picture of a parking garage with several buses in it.
“These two buses in the middle here, they were the first to arrive at Union Station on January 6th,” Higgins said. “These buses are nefarious in nature and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters, deployed onto our Capitol on January 6th.”
Higgins characterized this otherwise very boring photograph of buses as just the “tip of the iceberg” of evidence he’s accumulated. Finally, he concluded, with the air of a man about to place his opponent in checkmate: “Your day is coming, Mr. Wray.”
It’s pretty funny. For the record “ghost cars” or “ghost buses” can have many meanings. In New York, for example, a ghost car is one that uses a defaced license plate to skirt tolls and automatic speed and red light cameras. Ghost cars can also sometimes refer to marked police cars, though the decals are often only visible from certain angles. Police also use bait cars, which aren’t really what the congressman (and former law enforcement professional) from Louisiana is talking about here. He’s talking about two huge buses specifically painted for the purpose of bringing in fake MAGA rioters.
Could they have been filled with real Trump supporters like, say, a gaggle of Proud Boys, who are now in jail serving multi-decade sentences for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to violence on January 6? It sure seems just as likely, if not more so, considering we’re talking about a random image of two buses. And what about all the buses in the image that are clearly marked? Did those carry Trump supporters or just more FBI ringers?
In either case, a single image of the back of two buses is not the gotcha moment Higgins thinks it is. It’s so comforting to know that conspiracy theorists who can spin a yarn out of a single blurry image nearly two years after the incident are filling up the halls of American power. Ah, well, at least Higgins didn’t threaten to take a swing the FBI director.