No, there is no evidence that antifa activists stormed the Capitol.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
No, there is no evidence that antifa activists stormed the Capitol.
A sign that was posted inside the Capitol after a pro-Trump mob broke in on Wednesday.Credit...Jon Cherry/Getty Images
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In thousands of posts on Twitter and Facebook, members of the far right pushed the unfounded claim that the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, carrying Trump flags and halting Congress’s counting of electoral votes, was made up of liberal activists posing as a pro-Trump community to give it a bad name.
Several posts shared by thousands of people held up photographs as evidence that antifa supporters were behind the unrest. But those images did not, in fact, show antifa involvement. Instead, some of the photographs, and the information contained in them, suggested ties to far right movements.
Even President Trump acknowledged that the people who supported him — not liberal activists — had invaded the Capitol. At one point on Wednesday he told the mob that “we love you.”
Among the most popular figures pushing the conspiracy theory were the commentator Candace Owens, the Georgia lawyer L. Lin Wood and Juanita Broaddrick, a nursing home administrator who in 1999 publicly accused President Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978. Other prominent figures spreading the rumor included Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas; Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate; and Representative Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican.
The rumor that supporters of the antifa movement — a loosely organized collective of antifascist activists — had posed as members of the far right on Wednesday was shared more than 150,000 times on Twitter and thousands of times more on Facebook, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Altogether, the accounts pushing the rumor had tens of millions of followers.
“Indisputable photographic evidence that antifa violently broke into Congress today to inflict harm & do damage,” Mr. Wood posted on Twitter. “NOT @realDonaldTrump supporters.”
The “photographic evidence” that Mr. Wood pointed to in his post included a link to phillyantifa.org, where the photo of a bearded man involved in the mob was hosted. But that particular page exposed photos of known individuals in the neo-Nazi movement.
Another popular post, shared at least 39,000 times on Twitter, claimed without evidence that a “former FBI agent on the ground at U.S. Capitol just texted me and confirmed at least 1 ‘bus load’ of Antifa thugs infiltrated the peaceful Trump demonstrators.”
Untrue claims that “busloads” or “planeloads” of antifascist activists infiltrated protests are a common refrain from the far right.
In response to the baseless assertion, a Twitter user said, “Of course they did.” The user attached photos of a man wearing a horned helmet with his face painted in an American flag design as an apparent example of an antifa supporter.
The man was not an antifa supporter. Instead, he is a longtime QAnon supporter who has been a fixture at Arizona right-wing political rallies in recent months, according to The Arizona Republic.
Ben Decker and Jacob Silver contributed research
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Peaceful????
Trump supporters at this level are not far from what we saw in Nazi propaganda in 1930's Germany. They will lie about anything if it serves their purpose and protects their movement.
If there is one thing that all people should have learned over the past 2 months, it is that Trump supporters do not need any evidence. In fact they will deny any evidence provided, that does not prove what they want it to.
One of my Trump loving nephews put up something on Facebook yesterday which was supposed to demonstrate that antifa was behind the invasion of the US Capitol yesterday . It was a photo of this guy in the horns appearing at a BLM rally last summer. This was supposedly proof that antifa were the ones that entered the capitol.
It may be a picture of the guy at a BLM rally , but it's not remotely proof he is antifa.
As you might have guessed , he's not.
www.azcentral.com /story/news/politics/arizona/2021/01/06/arizona-qanon-supporter-jake-angeli-joins-storming-u-s-capitol/6568513002/
Longtime Arizona QAnon supporter in horned helmet joins storming of U.S. Capitol
Among the supporters of President Donald Trump who mobbed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, one – unmistakable in his fur, horned hat and painted face – was Jake Angeli, a QAnon supporter who has been a fixture at Arizona right-wing political rallies over the past year.
Angeli was seen in photographs from Washington, D.C., amid protesters who turned violent and stormed the building, causing both chambers to suspend their intended action of the day: certifying the results of the presidential election for former vice president Joe Biden.
At one point, Angeli was seen on the dais of the U.S. Senate. He posed for a photo flexing his right arm; his left was holding a spear from which hung a U.S. flag.
Since at least 2019, Angeli has held forth outside the Arizona Capitol shouting about various conspiracy theories, most related to the wide-ranging beliefs espoused by QAnon .
Angeli, in a 2020 interview with The Arizona Republic, said that he wears the fur bonnet, paints his face and walks around shirtless with ragged pants as a way to attract attention.
Then, he said, he is able to speak to people about his beliefs about QAnon and other truths he says remain hidden.
The QAnon school of thought supposes that a high-level government agent with Q-level security clearance has been unspooling cryptic clues about secret investigations inside Washington, D.C. Some of those investigations involve politicians running a child sex trafficking ring.
In February 2020, Angeli worked the crowd outside a rally in Phoenix for Trump.
He held up a tattered sign that read, “Q sent me,” and asked the crowd if they knew of the conspiracy. Several met him with affirmative nods.
“The snowball has been rolling and it’s only getting bigger,” Angeli said at the time. “We’re the mainstream now.”
Reached on his cellphone Wednesday evening, Angeli refused an interview with The Republic.
He did speak with a correspondent from the Globe and Mail of Toronto, according to a Tweet from that reporter , saying that police had stopped trying to block him and other Trump supporters and let them into the Capitol. After some time, according to the Tweet, Angeli said police politely asked him to leave.
SPECIAL REPORT : How a radio host planted seeds of the QAnon conspiracy theory
Angeli was a fixture at rallies to re-open Arizona businesses shuttered by the government as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. He has also been at rallies contesting the Arizona election results.
Besides the government corruption espoused by QAnon, Angeli believes that leaders have conspired to keep blockbuster scientific discoveries from the public in order to maintain the system as it is.
Angeli said that he discovered much of what he found through his own research on the Internet. That research – which included “Behold a Pale Horse” by the Arizona author William Copper – involved shadowy groups, including the Illuminati, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg group, that control the world.
“At a certain point, it all clicked in a way,” he said. “Oh, my God. I see now the reality of what’s going on.”
The Q movement, he said, validated beliefs he had held as far back as 2016.
We have people dressed in a Halloween costume, who believe that Hillary Clinton eats babies, invading our national seat of government building and trying to disrupt an extremely important governmental meeting.
And you think this country isnt fucked up ?
Lol that guy has now had to come out and start defending himself from his own group, I love watching extremist retards eat their own.
Honestly the only thing i can take away from all of this is that apparently Antifa, QAnon, and Trump supporters in general are all the same group. So from now on I will just the three terms interchangeably since apparently they are all the same people.
Nonsensical amalgams are a typical fascist propaganda tool.
Fuck them.
There is no compromising with these people Kavika. They will lie til the end of the world. All we can do is stay on message and keep playing whack -a -mole with their bizarre and destructive political beliefs.
Right wing media and far right conspiracy theories have already gone a long way towards ruining our country. But what choice do we have but to keep fighting them off ?
Fuck them all indeed.
THERE WAS NOT ONE SINGLE LIBERAL/PROGRESSIVE/DEMOCRAT/ANTI-FA PRESENT AT THIS FREAK SHOW
Antifa as bugaboo is a fascist propaganda tool.
'Antifa thugs?'
These fools were not shy about having camera's in their faces. They haven't been shy about posting their own imagery and bragging about their deeds. They haven't been shy about ratting each other out to save their own asses. That's what Trump supporters do. Biden and Harris won. Only people pissed off about that would participate in what happened yesterday.
What is mindboggling is that a group of pure nutcases ( there were MANY Q Anon in that mob) can do something like this and to much of the country it is more or less ho-hum another day in Trumpworld. We are losing mass grip on reality.
So Trump supporters and Antifa are the same group now? They were fighting each other over these last few years? Okay now I am getting confused, what do Trump supporters, aka Antifa, actually believe or want?
QAntifumpanon. Has a nice ring to it.
DumbfucksRUs
Fifty bucks is yours if you can say it 10 times fast.
Phew ... I can practically smell the BO wafting off that Viking wannabe.
Probably wonders why he can't get a girlfriend.
He looks like the kind of guy who would poop his pants to dodge the draft.
A ted shitshispants nugent type of guy - I CAN SEE THAT VERY CLEARLY