Month: October 2025

Authored by Ron Paul,

In my first column after the events of Jan. 6th, 2021, I criticized those who called the protest a “coup,” pointing out that, “Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous farce at the Capitol as if it were the equivalent of 9/11 have been involved for decades in planning and executing real coups overseas. In their real coups, many thousands of civilians have died.”

The media at the time played up the violence committed by a relative few at the protest to stoke a national outcry and demands for “justice.” More than 1,500 Americans were charged over the incident and nearly 500 were imprisoned, including outrageous prison sentences for relatively minor crimes like entering the Capitol building through doors opened by the police, and filming the event.

While most Democrats and Republicans in Congress harshly denounced the January 6th “insurrectionists,” a few Members displayed the appropriate skepticism over accepted government narratives. Rep. Thomas Massie, for example, was relentless in his search for answers to a simple but critically important question: How many of the “insurrectionists” were actually undercover FBI agents and other law enforcement officers and what role might they have played in inciting the violence.

Massie grilled then-Attorney General Merrick Garland several times, but Garland would not budge. He refused to say whether there had been any undercover federal agents in the crowd, though of course he must have known.

Last week we learned a little more of the truth. With the release of the FBI’s long lost “after action” report, we now know that more than 250 undercover agents were in the crowd. According to the report, they were given roles including crowd control that they were not suited for. Some agents cited in the report complained of political biases in the Bureau against conservatives. What other tasks might have been given to a “politicized” FBI undercover team?

In addition to the undercover agents, there were more than two dozen paid informants in the Jan. 6th crowd. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the subcommittee investigating the matter, asks an important question: “With that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?”

Were they paid to inform, or to instigate? That is a good question. We do know that the event was used by the incoming Biden Administration to demonize and persecute the political opposition. There is no telling how many Americans would have liked to use their First Amendment guarantee of free speech to criticize the Biden Administration but were silenced by fear of persecution, or worse. It’s easy to conclude, seeing so many arrested and handed long sentences for non-violent “crimes,” that it’s better to keep quiet. At the time, the US was still in the grip of Covid tyranny, where speaking out against “the Science” could get you “cancelled” or worse. This was another way to silence people who were not “going along with the program.”

In the end, January 6th, 2021, was a coup of sorts. It was a coup against the First Amendment. The lesson for all of us is that if we do not regularly but peacefully exercise our First Amendment guarantees we will definitely lose them, regardless of who is in power.

The White House has secured the release American from an Afghan prison after he had been detained for nine months, in what the Taliban is offering as an act of good will.

Amir Amiry was wrongfully detained by the Taliban last December as it appears he had assisted American forces prior to the US exit from Afghanistan. “While this marks an important step forward, additional Americans remain unjustly detained in Afghanistan. President Trump will not rest until all our captive citizens are back home,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. Little info has been given as to why he was arrested.

Amiry marks the fifth US citizen released from Taliban custody this year, with the others being Ryan Corbett, William McKenty, George Glezmann and Faye Hall. It was reportedly done with Gulf and Qatari mediation.

Rubio further hailed it as “significant step by the administration in Kabul” to move forward on releasing other Americans, at a moment the US is in talks with Kabul. Trump is especially seeking to gain back an American military presence at the sprawling Bagram Airfield base, the largest in central Asia, for the purpose of ‘counterterrorism’ operations.

It’s as yet unclear what the US offered the Taliban in return, but it could be part of some kind of broader economic or political deal in the works, which could ease sanctions pressure or international isolation of Kabul.

Reports say that at least three Americans, living and deceased, still remain in Afghanistan. The Hill reviews:

This includes Paul Overby, who is believed to be deceased, CNN reported.  Ahmad Habibi, the brother of Mahmood Habibi, a U.S. citizen held by the Taliban for more than three years, told the Associated Press that he and his family were grateful to hear the news about Amiry, and they remained hopeful that Mahmood would also return home. 

Mahmood Habibi, an Afghan-American business owner, worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company and vanished in 2022. The FBI and his family have said they believe he was taken by the Taliban, who have denied holding him, the AP reported.

Earlier this month, and to the surprise of many observers, President Trump began to frequently talk about Bagram base and getting it back.

A GITMO detainee may have been exchanged for American Amir Amory…

Muhammad Rahim, the last Afghan detainee in Guantanamo Bay has been finally released. The Afghan government has agreed to release U.S. citizen Amir Amiry in exchange for Muhammad Rahim who was never convicted of any crime and was unlawfully detained for two decades. pic.twitter.com/5FjxL2qIOd

— Sangar Paykhar – سنګر پیکار (@paykhar) September 29, 2025

“We gave it to them for nothing,” Trump had said in reference to the Taliban, after long criticizing the botched Biden-ordered US withdrawal from the country. “We want that base back,” he said.

So far, the Taliban has rejected this possibility, with its foreign minister Zakir Jalaly saying that a foreign military presence has “never been accepted by Afghans in history, and this possibility was completely rejected during the Doha talks and agreement, but doors to other engagements have been opened.”