Trump shares conspiracy theory that Antifa-Deep State planned Jan. 6

Donald Trump shared a post made by one of his fans that pinned blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection on left-wing Antifa activists.

Right-wing influencer Rogan O’Handley, an entertainment lawyer who posts under the name "DC Drano," made a post on Truth Social claiming that the absence of Antifa activists in videos from the U.S. Capitol riot actually served as proof they had coordinated the insurrection with government agents.

The former president then amplified the post to his own followers.

"Watched a J6 doc last night & something stuck out to me," O'Handley said. "Almost every MAGA event in DC during Trump’s tenure would be intercepted by violent hordes of Antifa. Remember how they destroyed DC during Trump’s inauguration? Well we have millions of hours of footage of J6, and yet not 1 clip shows a mass demonstration of Antifa in black bloc that day."

Police arrested more than 200 anti-Trump demonstrators after the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017, but two group trials ended in acquittals on nearly all charges and a hung jury on the rest, and prosecutors eventually dropped charges against most of the others.

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More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the Capitol – resulting in 629 guilty pleas and 87 convictions in 129 trials, as of July 2023 – but none of those defendants so far have been identified as left-wing provocateurs, and many of those who were arrested have disputed claims of Antifa involvement.

"Do people really think they took the day off?" O'Handley said. "No, they were at J6 and it’s very easy to spot them - they dressed like 'MAGA' but wore masks. True MAGA Patriots didn’t wear masks but when you rewatch J6 footage you see hundreds of face-masked violent agitators on the front lines. And the thing is, if Antifa is this 'decentralized' Leftist foot soldier gang with no leadership then how were they all on the same page that day with the plan?"

"I believe we will one day expose how the Deep State coordinated their actions through proxies," O'Handley added. "Antifa was in on the Fedsurrection."