QAnon is Linked to Violence
The Claim
Conspiracy theory group QAnon has not been violent.
Emerging story
On August 20, 2020, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld said, “QAnon violence! There is none. That’s funny. You are hilarious.”
The claim soon went viral on social media.
Misbar’s Analysis
As Misbar has reported on before, QAnon has often been linked to false claims and baseless beliefs, including that U.S. President Donald Trump is engaged in a war against Satan-worshiping pedophiles in entertainment and government. But is QAnon violent?
Our investigation found that QAnon has been linked to many violent incidents. A May 2019 document produced by the FBI describes multiple cases in which members of QAnon committed or threatened violence on their fellow citizens. The memo reads: "The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.”
Further, a July 2020 report from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center lists multiple violent incidents related to the group and calls it a threat to national security.
Specific examples include:
A woman in New York arrested with illegal knives: “She also livestreamed this two-day trip from Illinois to New York City and in it threatened to kill Joe Biden for his supposed involvement in a ‘deep state’ sex trafficking ring, in line with QAnon narratives.”
A QAnon member and Proud Boy in Seattle who killed his brother with a sword.
Pizzagate, which led a man in Washington, DC to enter a pizzeria with an assault rifle and start shooting at patrons and employees in an attempt to “self-investigate” Hillary Clinton’s ostensible pedophilia.
These are only a few examples of the vast assortment of QAnon-linked violence. Despite this, Trump recently called QAnon “people that love our country,” which some have read as implicitly condoning the group’s tendency towards violence.
