Vice President Mike Pence deleted and reposted pictures from his Florida visit to Twitter on Friday, removing a photo with an officer sporting a patch referencing the conspiracy theory “QAnon.”
Grateful for the courageous members of law enforcement who helped with my visit to Florida this afternoon. Thank you for everything you do to help keep our communities SAFE. Great to meet you! pic.twitter.com/Lh9Udk5fr2
— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) December 1, 2018
The theory first surfaced on the Internet forum 4chan in October 2017, after “Q,” who claims to be a top administration official with evidence of a global criminal conspiracy, began peddling groundless theories related to Trump’s run for the presidency, the Robert Mueller investigation and the involvement of “deep state” members and Hollywood stars in an international pedophilia scheme.
While “QAnon” was initially limited to fringe social media platforms like 4chan and 8chan, it now boasts a wider following and has a Facebook group with thousands of members and multiple Twitter accounts sporting the name.
“Q” even has a following among conservative celebrity figures such as Roseanne Barr, who has expressed a desire to meet the individual behind the conspiracies and even shared a phrase common among “QAnon” supporters — “wwg1wga,” an abbreviation for “where we go one, we go all.”
Trump supporters at a Florida rally in August were also seen holding “We Are Q” signs, the same month that Trump met with Lionel Lebron, one of the “QAnon” leaders and a known conspiracy theorist, in the Oval Office.
“Q” has published the unsubstantiated theory that Trump was asked to campaign for president by military leaders and claimed that Mueller is actually secretly investigating Trump’s campaign foe and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama for their ties to Russia. Multiple media outlets have debunked the provocative conspiracies.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
