CLAIM: Security camera footage from Jan. 6, 2021, shows a federal agent disguised as a supporter of then-President Donald Trump during the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
CLAIM: Security camera footage from Jan. 6, 2021, shows a federal agent disguised as a supporter of then-President Donald Trump during the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The footage shows Kevin James Lyons, a Chicago man who was sentenced in July to more than four years in federal prison for his role in the attack. Multiple images of Lyons at the Capitol, dressed as he is in the footage, appear in court documents.
THE FACTS: After House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday began releasing thousands of hours of footage from the Capitol insurrection, social media users — including members of Congress — seized on a clip they claimed proved that undercover federal agents participated in the riot.
As I said when Johnson released the footage, it's not going to be any change to what know really happened, there's just going to be all sorts of wild conspiracy theories coming out of idiots seeing blurry images and claiming false things, and the fact checks will disprove them but the fact checks don't get spread to the people who believe the false claims.
Worse, those people have convinced themselves that fact checkers are "deep state," so the presence of fact checkers debunking their claims they just take as further confirmation, because "why would the deep state have to try and debunk something if it wasn't true in the first place?"
These people have left object reality and we can't keep pretending that we can bring them back with truth and logic.