Nearly as soon as the tear gas settled on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, the conspiracy theory began to pick up steam.
"Earlier today, the Capitol was under siege by people who can only be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement," Laura Ingraham
told her viewers on Fox News that night. "They were likely not all Trump supporters, and there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.".....
In those 24 hours, the lie that the rioters were actually antifa
was mentioned more than 400,000 times online. It
peaked on the anonymous imageboard site 4chan around 1 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to the Social Media Analysis Toolkit, which is
around the same time that the barriers at the Capitol were breached. Then the sowing of doubt spread further: first on Parler and Twitter, then on Reddit, then on Fox News and in the halls of Congress.
But an NPR analysis of more than 280 people charged in the Capitol insurrection reveals a far different picture of the attack than the one painted by this baseless conspiracy theory — and it comes from the perspective of the rioters themselves.....
A handful repeated the conspiracy theory that antifa individuals were among the mob in a significant and organized way, but the vast majority did not, according to NPR's analysis.
In fact, some rioters seemed annoyed that antifa was getting the credit for the Capitol attack, and they took to social media to say so.
"Listen up: I hear so many reports of 'Antifa' was storming the capital [sic] building. Know that every single person who believes that narrative have been DUPED AGAIN!" Ryan Taylor Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran charged in the attack,
posted on Facebook on Jan. 7, according to court documents. "Sure, there may have been some 'Antifa' in DC, but there wasn't enough to 'Storm the Capital' [sic] themselves."
So besides the Big lie that Trump won the election, there is the lie that Antifa was the problem in the Capitol and not Trump supporters.
