Posts shared tens of thousands of times on the evening of Jan. 6, 2021 claim that one of the individuals photographed during the D.C. protests where Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to overturn his election defeat was a Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporter or part of the left-wing anti-fascist movement Antifa. Past photographs of the man (easily identifiable due to his wearing a hat with fur and horns and a painted face) show he has attended pro-Trump rallies, has spoken in support of Trump’s policies and is a supporter of the conspiracy theory QAnon.
Posts making this claim are visible here , here , here , here and here .
Comments include “Same guy at a BLM rally in AZ is in the capitol building today.... staged AF” and “Dumbass! At least change your costume..” Other posts claim he is part of Antifa (here).
Media outlets like AZ Central and Mashable have identified the man as Jake Angeli ( here , here ). According to AZ Central, he has been a “fixture at Arizona right-wing political rallies over the past year." In an interview with the news outlet in May 2020 visible here , Angeli spoke in favor of President Donald Trump and his policies. In another video visible here , Angeli can be seen praising Trump and Q (in reference to QAnon).
On January 6, Angeli was photographed inside the U.S. Capitol (Reuters photographs can be seen here and here ) after demonstrators breached security defenses and entered the building.
Angeli was captured by a Reuters photograph visible here in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 7, 2020 during a “Stop the Steal” protest after the U.S. presidential election was called for Democratic candidate Joe Biden (here).
Images from a November 6 article posted by local media outlet Cronkite News here show Angeli demonstrating among Trump-supporters with a sign that read “Hold the Line Patriots God Wins” and “Q Sent Me”.
Some posts misleadingly feature a cropped photograph of Angeli ( www.twitter.com/KelemenCari/status/1346932668232069121/photo/1 , here ), where his sign that reads “Q sent me” has been cut out (the uncropped version is visible here ).
Upon inspection by Reuters, Angeli's private Facebook page included various posts and photographs he had shared showing his support for QAnon and Donald Trump. His own posts reported that he attended the “MAGA Million March” in December 2020 and “Q Con” in October 2020 (described on its website qcon.live/ as a series of events for “followers and influencers” of the QAnon movement).
VERDICT
False. Evidence shows that Jake Angeli, a man wearing a hat with horns and fur and a painted face and that was photographed inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is a QAnon supporter who has attended Trump rallies and spoken in favor of the president.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.