Not long after Ken Attorney General Ken Paxton addressed a large “Save America” rally of Trump loyalists outside the White House on Wednesday, they marched to the Capitol and demolished the building when Congress election president Joe Biden wanted to ratify election victory.
But Paxton had his own ideas about the mob carrying Trump flags and signs.
On Thursday morning, he went to Facebook to promote a conspiracy theory that the people who passed the Capitol were not Trump supporters, but members of antifa.
“Those who stormed the capital yesterday were not Trump supporters. It has been confirmed that they are Antifa,” Paxton wrote. “Violence is not the answer.”
Paxton’s report cited two sources: a snapshot of a tweet by right-wing journalist Paul Sperry and a snapshot of an article in the Washington Times with the caption: stormed the capital. ‘
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When police in Capitol Hill removed the rioters from the Capitol, Paxton published something similar on Wednesday. People who stormed the building after a Trump rally “are not Trump supporters,” he tweeted, citing the screenshot of Sperry’s tweet.
“BREAK: Former FBI agent on the territory at the US Capitol just texted me and confirmed that at least 1 ‘busload’ of Antifa thugs had entered peaceful protesters as part of a fake Trump flag option,” Sperry said. tweet.
Sperry’s tweet has since been deleted. Sperry, a former head of the Washington office of Investor’s Business Daily, has written several anti-Muslim books with titles such as: “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington” and “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America. “He did not return questions sent to him by email.
The second source from Paxton, which claims that Wednesday’s mob is ‘Antifa’, is the Washington Times article, was published by news and opinion writer Rowan Scarborough on Wednesday around 8:15 p.m. The story mentions an unnamed ‘retired military officer’ who told the Times ‘that the firm XRVision used its software to do face recognition of protesters and linked two Philadelphia Antifa members with two men in the Senate.’
The newspaper has since withdrawn the report, but not before Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, quoted it on the House floor later that day, saying that “some of the people who are trespassing on the Capitol today were not Trump supporters, they were hiding them. As Trump supporters and were in fact members of the violent terrorist group antifa. ‘
XRVision, a face recognition technology company in Singapore, issued a statement to PolitiFact and BuzzFeed News on Thursday morning saying the company had sent a letter of intent to the Washington Times asking it to withdraw the story and issue an apology. XRVision’s software identified two members of a Neo-Nazi organization and a Q-Anon supporter, not members of antifa. The company said the photos were only distributed to a handful of individuals for private consumption.
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The company said it did not know the “retired military officer” who gave the Washington Times the information on which his report was based.
“XRVision prides itself on the accuracy of its technology and considers the Washington Times publication to be false, misleading and defamatory,” the company said in a statement.
The Times corrected the story at around 5.30pm on Thursday following a query from PolitiFact, saying: ‘The Washington Times incorrectly reported late Wednesday that facial recognition technology supported the speculation and identified two Antifa members. In fact, XRVision did not identify any members of the far-left movement as part of the attack. ‘
Paxton did not return a request for comment.
As events became chaotic on Wednesday, Trump himself identified the mob as his own supporters in a video posted on Twitter, asking them to part ways peacefully, adding: “We love you. You are very special. “
One of the rioters identified in several photos, Jake Angeli, also known as the ‘Q Shaman’, who can be easily spotted in his horned fur hat, denied the allegations that he was a masked member of antifa.
“I’m not antifa or (Black Lives Matter). I’m a Qanon & digital soldier,” Angeli posted on Twitter.
Others recorded videos of the Capitol and identified themselves as patriots, including Jenny Cudd, a former mayoral candidate in Midland who said she broke into the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She told the Midland Reporter Telegram, without providing evidence, that antifa activists broke through the Capitol barricades and assaulted police officers before she arrived there.
Our verdict
Paxton posted two posts on social media after Wednesday’s riot against Trump on Capitol Hill, saying the rioters were not Trump supporters but antifa.
Paxton based his claim on two sources – a deleted tweet and a withdrawn Washington Times article. Except for the dubious sources, there is no evidence that those who stormed the capital were antifa.
We assess Paxton’s claim Pants on fire.