Does a "previously censored video" show antifa members dressing up as supporters of Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021? No, that's not true: The video found on social media was not censored before and features a short clip from a much longer video by actor Walter Masterson, who was out that day to record comedy bits but instead documented the attack on Capitol Hill. He does not profess to be a member of antifa.
The claim appeared in a post and video on Twitter published on March 10, 2023.
JUST IN: Previously censored video re-emerges showing ANTIFA members dressing up a Trump supporters in DC...
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This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Tue Mar 21 14:01:29 2023 UTC)
The 63-second video clip comes from a nearly 25-minute video on YouTube (archived here) put together by Masterson and fellow actor Peter Scattini. The two men did masquerade as supporters of then-President Donald Trump to help them circulate in the crowd but they do not claim to be members of antifa, which can be described as a loose network of anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters. The video description says:
Both I and @PeterScattini went to Capitol Hill on January 6th to make comedy videos. We did not expect to be documenting a dark day for our democracy. And yes I also interviewed Jacob Chansley aka Jake Angeli aka 'That Viking Guy' The original video was removed by a certain news network but I have blurred out their logo and re-uploaded the video.
The part of the clip posted to Twitter appears at about the 1:40 mark. It appears below:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Tue Mar 21 16:23:46 2023 UTC)
The part of the tweet making the claim that the video was "previously censored" is disingenuous. The description above says, "The original video was removed by a certain news network but I have blurred out their logo and re-uploaded the video."
Ultimately, the video wasn't censored to hide the activities of antifa members pretending to be Trump supporters. It was pulled for a short time to obscure the identity of the network logo and was reposted on February 3, 2021.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about antifa can be found here.
