YouTube pays President Trump $24.5 million in account ban lawsuit
YouTube will pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit after suspending President Trump’s account since January. 6 riots.
President Donald Trump on Oct. 12 repeated false claims about the deadly Jan. 6 attack and suggested in a social media post that former President Joe Biden placed FBI agents in the crowd.
The riot on January 6, 2021, when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, occurred while President Trump was still in office. The presidential election was certified the next day, and Biden was sworn in as president on January 20, 2021.
“The Biden FBI deployed 274 agents into the crowd on January 6th,” President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social overnight. “If this were true, which it is, many very good people would owe a huge apology. What a fraud – do something about it!!!”
The post follows similar claims he made on social media in late September. It also reflects a long-standing conspiracy theory that the attack was ordered by the government, although multiple reports and investigations have debunked the allegations.
A Justice Department inspector general report released in December 2024 found no evidence that the FBI had staff embedded in the crowd of protesters at the U.S. Capitol. The report concluded that 26 confidential FBI sources who were not FBI employees independently participated in the January 6 event in Washington, DC. The report said three of them were assigned by authorities to report on possible domestic terrorists on Jan. 6, and four FBI agents entered the U.S. Capitol that day without authorities’ permission.
The 274 agents President Trump referred to in his post appear to be referring to the 274 agents the FBI said were dispatched to respond to the crisis at the U.S. Capitol after the riot began.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who was appointed by President Trump, posted on X on September 27 that on January 6, “274 FBI agents were thrown into crowd control,” contradicting the president’s claims, but criticizing the move as “contrary to FBI standards.”
The riot left several people dead, including a protester who was shot dead as he tried to approach fleeing lawmakers. One Capitol Police officer died of a stroke the day after the attack, and four others have taken their own lives since then. More than 150 police officers were injured, many permanently.
By the end of 2024, more than 1,400 people have been arrested and more than 1,000 sentenced for January 6-related crimes. When President Trump took office for a second term in January 2025, he commuted the sentences of 14 people convicted in the January 6 attack and granted full pardons to more than 1,200 people convicted in connection with the riot.
Kathryn Palmer is USA TODAY’s political reporter. She can be reached at the following address: kapalmer@usatoday.com And to X@Kathryn Purml.
