Vice President Mike Pence will join a delegation of Trump campaign officials at a fundraiser next week in Montana whose hosts are linked to the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory, the Associated Press said Wednesday in an exclusive report.
QAnon is named for “Q” — an anonymous online commentator and purported government insider — who claims that Trump is fighting powerful members of the so-called “deep state” within the federal government who are devil-worshippers, child sex traffickers and cannibals.
There’s no evidence for any of it, but the outlandish nonsense has drawn support from some notable figures in the Republican Party.
“Trump has refused to say QAnon is false,” the AP says.
The news agency says it obtained an invitation to the planned event in Bozeman MT, hosted by Caryn and Michael Borland, who “have shared QAnon memes and retweeted posts from QAnon accounts.”
Along with Pence, the Sept. 14 fundraiser “is expected to draw influential figures in the president’s orbit including Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top Trump fundraising official who is dating Donald Trump Jr., GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee finance chairman Todd Ricketts and RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks Jr.,” the AP says.
“Michael Borland prominently features several QAnon ‘Q’ logos on his Facebook page. One features a flaming ‘Q’ with a Christian cross in the middle,” the news agency reports, adding that on Twitter he “shared a post that labeled the Black Lives Matter movement ‘terrorists’” and threatened to shoot prostesters.
The Borlands have posed for a photo with Trump, donated more than $220,000 to his re-election campaign and were guests at the Republican National Convention last month, part of the crowd that gathered on the South Lawn of the White House for Trump’s speech.
