Right-Wing Media and Trump Officials Spread Misinformation After Pro-Trump Mob Storms Capitol

Pro-Trump violence erupted in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, with a mob storming the U.S. Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory. In an attempt to deflect blame, right-wing media and Trump-aligned government officials began spreading unverified rumors and misinformation, claiming that antifa was responsible for the violence. Despite evidence of white nationalist Trump supporters breaking into the Capitol, top-rated hosts on Fox News, Fox Business, and other right-wing outlets promoted baseless allegations that "antifa" leftists had infiltrated the protests and caused the violent unrest.

Key Takeaways:

• All three of Fox News' primetime hosts - Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham - featured baseless suggestions on Wednesday that "antifa" or outside forces could have been involved in the chaos.
• None of the Fox News hosts discussed that President Trump had directly incited his followers to march toward the Capitol minutes before the chaos at a rally where he vowed to "never concede" the presidential election.
• The downplaying and deflection of the violence at the Capitol, which resulted in one woman killed in a shooting and three dead in medical emergencies, prevailed throughout right-wing media.
• Pro-Trump lawyer and QAnon conspiracy theorist Lin Wood tweeted a picture of what he claimed were left-wing militants, but the photo actually showed well-known white nationalist Matthew Heimbach and a highly visible QAnon supporter.
• Twitter suspended Wood's account following his stream of disinformation about the riot.
• Right-wing pundits have tried to portray the riot as the action of a few bad apples rather than the result of Trump hosting an anti-democratic rally and inciting his supporters to take action against elected officials.

Statistics:

• 1 woman killed in a shooting
• 3 dead in medical emergencies
• The rioters identified by the facial recognition company XRVision were actually far-right extremists, not antifa supporters
• The Washington Times cited facial recognition company XRVision to make false claims that two of the people in the Capitol building had been identified as antifa supporters
• XRVision itself told BuzzFeed News that the rioters it identified were actually far-right extremists

Sources:

• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-protestors-rally-in-dc-for-desperate-election-loser-donald-trump_n_5ff4a358c5b6e7974fd6d5b0
• https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/theres-no-evidence-antifa-was-involved-in-the-attempted
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-news-riots-trump_n_5ff66bb2c5b64e568bf40eb9
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chuck-schumer-calls-for-trumps-removal_n_5ff73b8cc5b6214c551876b1
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greg-kelly-newsmax-trump-supporters-dont-do-these-things_n_5ff709f0c5b665581f68bbe4
• https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facial-recognition-antifa-washington-times-false
• https://onezero.medium.com/claims-antifa-embedded-in-capitol-riots-come-from-a-deeply-unreliable-facial-recognition-company-459603c0d073
• https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/citing-american-revolution-rush-limbaugh-implicitly-endorses-political