Anti-Semitic symbols and invective openly displayed during pro-Trump mob’s assault on Capitol Hill

A number of photographs posted to social media showed rioters dressed in T-shirts bearing anti-Semitic slogans.

By Ben Cohen, Algemeiner

The storming of Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon by militant supporters of President Donald Trump featured several instances of anti-Semitic agitation, from a virulent Holocaust denier who helped ransack House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to various individuals who displayed far-right and neo-Nazi slogans and symbols.

Shortly after the crowd broke into the Capitol Building at 1:00 p.m., Nick Fuentes — a notorious Holocaust denier and far-right propagandist who was booted from the YouTube platform in Feb. 2020 — as well as Tim Gionet, a neo-Nazi who goes by the moniker “Baked Alaska,” smashed their way into Pelosi’s office.

For the next 20 minutes, the two livestreamed footage of the assault on Capitol Hill, with Gionet ostentatiously making calls from the telephone on Pelosi’s desk.

Neither man was arrested by police officers yesterday, resulting in a stream of critical posts on social media. “Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and neo-Nazi loser Baked Alaska both live-streamed from Pelosi’s office after storming the capitol,” tweeted one commenter. “@FBI, why have neither of them been arrested?”

Fuentes — a key figure in the infamous neo-Nazi “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017 — has a lengthy record of pushing anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and openly racist rhetoric. A dossier of his outbursts prepared by anti-Semitism watchdog Canary Mission includes such remarks as comparing sex with a black man to sex with “my dog,” and the claim that the First Amendment does not apply to Muslims because of their “barbaric ideology.”

He has called Jewish neoconservatives “agents of the devil” and suggested that Jews could “stay here and we’ll tolerate you, but you kinda have your own country already.” Fuentes has also denied and mocked the Holocaust on several occasions, including a video he posted online in Oct. 2019 that questioned the scope of the slaughter by likening Jewish victims of the Nazis to cookies baked in an oven.

Gionet, another leading participant in the Charlottesville rally, was similarly banned from YouTube in Oct. 2020 for pushing hateful content. He frequently used his Twitter account to post the “14 words” — a mantra adopted by neo-Nazis for the preservation of the “white race” — and once posed the question, “Internet: Why do you want to gas the Jews?”

A number of photographs posted to social media showed rioters dressed in T-shirts bearing anti-Semitic slogans. One man wore a shirt with the words “Camp Auschwitz” printed above a skull and crossbones.

Other T-shirts on display on Wednesday included one bearing the abbreviation “6MWE,” which stands for “six million wasn’t enough” — a reference to the number of Jews exterminated by the Nazis during WWII. The same shirt featured a wartime image associated with Italy’s fascist dictatorship.

In a disturbing incident that took place outside the Capitol Building, an Israeli television reporter engaged in a live broadcast was accosted by a pro-Trump demonstrator who showered him with anti-Semitic abuse. The demonstrator called the correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13 a “lying Israeli” and a “yid” as he ranted about U.S. aid to the State of Israel.