“Testifying in front of Congress for the first time since the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers said at the moment there is no indication that any antifa members participated in the Capitol assault as some Republicans have suggested.
“The FBI director said the smallest, but the most serious, group that attempted to disrupt Congress were domestic terrorists.
"'The smallest group numerically, but by far and away the most serious group. are those who ... breached the Capitol grounds, who engaged in violence against law enforcement who attempted to disrupt the members of Congress in the conduct of their constitutional responsibilities and of those, some of those people, clearly came to Washington, we now know, with plans and intentions to engage in the worst kind of violence, we would consider domestic terrorism,' he said.
“Wray told lawmakers that the FBI has been 'sounding the alarm' about the rising domestic terror threat for 'a number of years now.'”
– Alexander Mallin and Luke Barr, ABC News
On March 2, Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee the bureau has arrested more than 270 suspects involved in the violent insurrection with more than 300 facing federal charges and more being identified every day. He called the American public the FBI's "greatest partner" in the investigation with more than 270,000 digital media tips sent to agents so far.
More broadly, the FBI director said that there are 2,000 domestic terrorism investigations, up from almost 1,000 when he first started in 2017.
(Alexander Mallin and Luke Barr. “FBI director says Capitol assault 'domestic terrorism,' no evidence of antifa.” ABC News. March 02, 2021.)
Pressed by Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin whether the Capitol attack involved white supremacists, Wray said the majority of the people arrested could be categorized as militia extremists.
"We at the FBI don't tend to think of violent extremism in terms of right, left, that's not a spectrum that we look at. What I would say is that it is clear .... a large and growing number of the people that we have arrested so far in the connection with the 6th are what we would call militia violent extremists ... and some already who emerged that I would have been in the racially motivated extremist bucket," he explained.
“FBI Director Wray Opening Statement on January 6 Attack on Capitol.” C-Span. March 02, 2021.)
Republicans Spin Conspiracy Theory
Here is a sample of the lies posted by Trump supporters about antifa:
“Staged! Staged! Staged! These are ANTIFA people dressed to look like Trump Supporters who have broken into the Capitol building. Trump supporters are NOT extremists. Socialism will be their downfall.”
– Brittany Supko, posted on Facebook on January 6
Wray's comments came after Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the committee, spent much of his opening remarks focused not on the right-wing extremists who attacked the Capitol in January, but on left-wing extremists, such as the anti-fascist, or antifa, movement.
Trump and many of his allies have repeatedly claimed that antifa activists were responsible for the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Reps. Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz have all promoted the idea that left-wing extremist group antifa sneaked in with Trump supporters on January 6 to provoke the mob.
"Evidence growing that fascist antifa orchestrated the Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics," Brooks, an Alabama Republican, tweeted the morning of January 7.
"This has all the hallmarks of Antifa provocation," Gosar, an Arizona Republican, wrote on January 6.
On February 23, Sen. Ron Johnson Waller claimed, without evidence, that left-wing “provocateurs” and “fake” Trump supporters sparked the violence at the Capitol riots. Johnson made the comments as Capitol Hill security chiefs testified before a Senate committee investigating how rioters were able to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6.
(Paul McLeod. “Sen. Ron Johnson Told Capitol Security Officials That “Fake” Trump Supporters Started The Capitol Riots.” BuzzFeed. February 23, 2021,
Newsmax also blamed the violence on antifa and Black Lives Matter. After reporting the citywide 6 p.m. curfew in Washington, D.C., anchor Tom Basile said, “So that you have a complete picture of what’s going on, the last couple of times we’ve seen these rallies, it hasn’t just been the president’s supporters. We have seen antifa, we have seen Black Lives Matter, we have seen other leftist groups that have tried to stir up violence.”
“That’s a great point, Tom, because I am hearing from some people on the ground that there is a question of, if antifa has infiltrated the Trump rally-goers and are fomenting some kind of unrest,” White House correspondent Emerald Robinson added, baselessly. “So that that is conversations that’s being had outside of these doors.”
(Matt Wilstein. “Newsmax Blames Antifa for Pro-Trump MAGA Mob Insurrection.” Daily Beast. January 06, 2021.)
At a hearing last week, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., read from an article that falsely blamed the violence at the Capitol on antifa, "fake Trump protesters" and "provocateurs."
A recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll found that 58 percent of Republicans believe the Capitol riot to have been "mostly an antifa-inspired attack that only involved a few Trump supporters."
“Asked to describe what happened during the assault on the Capitol, 58% of Trump voters call it "mostly an antifa-inspired attack that only involved a few Trump supporters." That's more than double the 28% who call it "a rally of Trump supporters, some of whom attacked the Capitol." Four percent call it "an attempted coup inspired by President Trump."
(Rebecca Shabad. “FBI Director Wray repeatedly rebuts claims that antifa activists attacked Capitol.” NBC News. March 02, 2021.)
58% – an exasperating majority! Trump voters – and Trump politicians – have simply decided NOT to believe facts – that the former president's supporters didn't attack the Capitol. They think it was a loose alliance of anti-fascist groups pretending to be right-wing activists, as part of an elaborate ruse.
What the Hell?
After through investigation, it is evident Republicans are going to continue to subscribe to lies. A majority of them toss facts to the wind in favor of a continuing belief in a lost cause. These people range from quacks like those who subscribe to a QAnon-linked conspiracy theory that former President Trump will be inaugurated on March 4 to highly respected members of Congress.
The important question is “Why?”
Answers:
The Bogeyman
Antifa has become a useful bogeyman for figures on the right, with Trump and others declaring it a terrorist organization and vowing to prosecute those who adhere to its ideology of violent resistance against fascism.
Confusion In the Ranks
Trump loyalists have been bickering online over whether to take credit for and celebrate their most dramatic action yet, or distance themselves from the scene by calling up familiar conspiracy theories to explain it away. Many say, “Let the facts be damned. Full speed ahead.” In a hypocritical attempt to save face – it. deny, deny, deny.
Donald Trump
What happened on January 6 restssquarely on the shoulders of Trump and his misguided flock. Any attempt to excuse, rationalize, justify or lie about their treasonous behavior is almost as despicable as their actions. Trump’s false belief that widespread voter fraud stole the election from him caused the insurrection. Period. And, Trump has blamed antifa activists for violence at protests over police killings of black people seemingly forever.
Donald Trump is a White nationalist whose history of racism and bigotry cannot be denied. He has made no attempt to distance himself from white supremacists and right-wing militias.
Instead of distancing himself and his party from these dangerous groups, Trump includes them under the umbrella of his xenophobic, divisive agenda. Milking them for his own political advancement, he knows their male, masochistic qualities appeal to confessed racists and people who fail to face their own aversive qualities – those possessing conflicting, often non-conscious, negative feelings and beliefs about blacks.
Confronting aversive racism as a person groomed with white fragility is not easy. In fact, acknowledging you were taught to treat every person the same, and, at the same time, addressing personal issues of unconscious racism is very difficult. Beyond the surface of bias, there exists more prejudice. If we are to eliminate racism in America, we must plot a course that includes both identifying white fragility and aversive racism and reinforcing strategies that combat these conditions.
“Like waves on sand, their reactions form predictable patterns: they will insist that they 'were taught to treat everyone the same,' that they are 'color-blind,' that they 'don’t care if you are pink, purple, or polka-dotted.' They will point to friends and family members of color, a history of civil-rights activism, or a more 'salient' issue, such as class or gender.”
(Katy Waldman. “A Sociologist Examines the 'White Fragility' That Prevents White Americans from Confronting Racism.” The New Yorker. July 23, 2018.)
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