No, Antifa Did Not Participate In the Coup Attempt
A dangerous new "Antifa" conspiracy theory perpetuated by a host of conservative public figures, including Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, came from far-right publication The Washington Times. It has already been soundly and thoroughly debunked, and even the publication has now taken it down.
The "news" claimed that many of the people who broke into the national landmark and ransacked it were "Antifa" infiltrators, and not Trump supporters.
The article especially pointed to three examples as definitive proof; the bearded, viking-like man prominently storming the capitol building and captured on film throughout the day on various news channels, a man standing next to him in one of the photos making the rounds online, and finally another man from a photo from January 6th, who they subsequently identified and found on a 'Philly Antifa' website.
Many were quick to debunk the claims, knowing the figures in question from personal experiences or run-ins with them, if not from their reputations as agitators at protests and events held around the country. The most thorough example of this debunking came from prominent twitter user/lawyer @RespectableLaw.
The flamboyant, bearded fellow who the Washington Times claimed was Antifa goes by the name of 'The Q Shaman' and is a well-known agitator of BLM events and anything he deems as a threat to his Qanon beliefs. He has a reputation among many on the left (in Arizona, especially) as a threat, and has long been on their radar. He is most definitely a qanon adherent and Trump supporter.
The man with the "PhillyAntifa" link was put up on their website in a photo alongside infamous white nationalist Matthew Heimbach, and the photo and article warn readers of their activities/identify them as dangerous far-right extremists. Finally the third man had a tattoo that was inaccurately identified as a 'hammer and sickle,' but was in fact a video game's logo (Dishonored, published in 2012).
Not only were none of the men "antifa," they were all easily identified as far-right out-of-staters who had come to Washington D.C. with the intention of supporting Donald Trump. The dangerously misleading narrative that Trump and a number of other elected officials had cooked up - that Mike Pence could change the result of the election during the certification of Electoral votes - attracted these men and the hundreds of others who sacked one of the government's most hallowed institutions, and whose failed insurrection will forever be remembered in infamy.
Furthermore, the lack of a U.S. capitol police force presence raises profound questions as to what the difference was in their protocol between the January 6th coup attempt versus the BLM protests that arose all summer surrounding race-inspired excessive uses of force and/or extra-judicial killings by the police. Those peaceful protestors mysteriously garnered a far more serious police presence than the armed insurrectionists who had made their illegal January 6th plans known for months before carrying them out.