False: The police escorted AntiFa protestors into Washington D.C. to facilitate the Capitol riots.

By: Ankita Kulkarni
April 6 2021

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Following the riots on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, several social media posts claim that left-wing activists, broadly referred to as AntiFa, were responsible for the violence. One of the videos shared on social media was captioned with “AntiFa being escorted into DC by police ahead of January 6 MAGA stop the steal rally”. A man states that AntiFa and Black Lives Matter activists were traveling via bus to Capitol riots, accompanied by police officers. The video has since been deleted on mainstream social media platforms. A similar fact check by AFP (Agence France-Presse) tracked the incident back to December 5, 2020, when Trump supporters had organized a protest in St Paul, Minnesota, in front of governor Tim Walz’s house. The rally was carried out to protest against the COVID-19 restrictions. Local left-wing organizers had also arranged a counter-protest due to the presence of right-wing militias. The incident was also reported by the local media. The surroundings in the viral Twitter video match other footage of the actual event that was held on December 5, 2020. The presence of AntiFa during the U.S. Capitol storm has previously been debunked by Logically as there was no evidence that any individual affiliated with AntiFa had attended the riot. PolitiFact noted that controversial left-wing activist John Sullivan was arrested on January 14 in connection with the Capitol riot. He was released from custody on January 15. Although his Twitter accounts showed him support anti-police and anti-Trump slogans, Sullivan told PolitiFact that he was not a part of AntiFa. We can conclude that there was no presence of AntiFa during the Capitol insurrection.