Republican lawmakers such as Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks were quick to blame undercover antifa supporters for the violence that rocked Capitol Hill Wednesday, but far-right leaders made no attempts online to hide their support for the event that took place.
Gaetz cited a Washington Times report, in which an anonymous law enforcement official said facial recognition software identified antifa operatives “masquerading as Trump supporters.” Brooks said that another congressman warned him earlier this week that antifa “orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.”
On Thursday, the facial recognition software company cited by Gaetz and the Washington Times rebuffed the report and demanded the outlet to retract the story and apologize, according to Buzzfeed News, and said that the company’s software “actually identified two members of neo-Nazi organizations and a QAnon supporter among the pro-Trump mob — not antifa members.”
Law enforcement has yet to identify publicly whether any of the 52 individuals that the Metropolitan Police Department arrested Wednesday were connected to any political ideology, and the FBI said that it “is seeking to identify individuals instigating violence in Washington, D.C.” But known Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was arrested in Washington ahead of the protests, made no attempt to hide his support of the madness that descended upon Capitol Hill.
In a series of posts to conservative social media site Parler, Tarrio told his supporters to “do what must be done.”
“Don’t fucking leave,” he wrote, adding that he was “Proud Of My Boys and my country.”
After his arrest, Tarrio was barred from attending the protests.
Tarrio also encouraged his social media base to follow “MurderTheMedia,” a Parler account that said law enforcement officials “WILL get their pound of flesh” for attempting to subdue the violence and posted videos and pictures of the chaos throughout the day.
One Trump supporter who captured the internet’s attention for wearing a large headdress with bison horns was at first suspected to be an antifa supporter but was instead identified as “Q Shaman” Jake Angeli, a supporter of a pro-Trump online internet conspiracy theory alleging, among other things, that a cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles operates a deep state bent on stopping Trump.
Angeli has attended a number of pro-Trump rallies in the past and spoke to the Globe and Mail about his involvement in Wednesday’s storming of Capitol Hill, during which he said police “stopped trying to block him and other Trump supporters and let them into the Capitol.”
Among the supporters of Trump who mobbed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, one – unmistakable in his fur, horned hat and painted face – was Jake Angeli, a QAnon supporter who has been a fixture at AZ right-wing political rallies https://t.co/m3JLwmkabU pic.twitter.com/F3PckOSGhW
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) January 7, 2021
Angeli was not among those who were arrested.
Tim Gionet, a “white nationalist online personality” who goes by Baked Alaska, according to Business Insider, also participated in the breaching of the Capitol Hill complex and livestreamed more than 20 minutes of the event.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified Gionet as a white nationalist after he made a number of online posts about the “14 words,” a white supremacist phrase, and posted about wanting to “gas the Jews.”
Noted nazi/white supremacist/etc Baked Alaska is streaming from inside a Capitol Building office pic.twitter.com/iL5SGAAn1M
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) January 6, 2021
At least four protests were scheduled in Washington, D.C., for Wednesday, the day Congress was expected to count the votes of the Electoral College and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Those protests descended into chaos as demonstrators breached the congressional building — smashing windows, breaking into office, and looting rooms.
Trump repeatedly stoked the chaos throughout the day, repeating claims of widespread voter fraud and telling his supporters that “we will never give up” and “we will never concede.”
After the Capitol was breached, Trump called for peace but in a series of follow-up tweets sympathized with and appeared to defend his extremist supporters, saying in a deleted tweet, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.”
