https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/qanon-slogan-spoken-from-trump-rally-podium-as-fbi-warns-about-conspiracy-theory-related-violence
QAnon slogan spoken from Trump rally podium as FBI warns about conspiracy theory-related violence
“ Where we go one, we go all.”
That popular slogan of the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement was said from the podium of Thursday's Trump rally by online personality and founder of the “Walk Away Movement” Brandon Straka as he warmed up the crowd a few hours before President Trump took the stage in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Earlier that day, a 15-page FBI memo from the Phoenix field office warning of possible dangers stemming from fringe online conspiracy theories specifically named QAnon as a source of concern.
“The FBI assesses anti-government, identity based, and fringe political conspiracy theories likely motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to engage in criminal or violent activity,” the May memo stated. "And the bureau worried that these conspiracy theories would continue to “emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace.”
QAnon, whose #WWG1WGA hashtag is pervasive on certain fringe segments of social media, is an online movement that originated on 4chan message boards with posts by an anonymous person going by “Q,” who claimed to be a government official with top-secret intelligence clearance and who made a variety of evidence-free claims about Trump covertly battling a series of deep state plots and bizarre global conspiracies.
“We are all in this together. Where we go one, we go all,” Straka said last night in a recitation of the QAnon slogan. “We are Making America Great Again, but this time it is great for everyone.”
Trump has never expressed support for the conspiracy, though he has retweeted QAnon-linked accounts a number of times. Bill Mitchell, a conservative radio show host who has promoted the conspiracy theory, was invited to the White House Social Media Summit in July.
QAnon supporters are generally pro-Trump and often have a small but noticeable presence at Trump rallies, waving signs and wearing "Q"-themed clothing, but the comments from Straka seem to be the first time the conspiracy theory has explicitly been promoted from the stage at a Trump rally.
Straka told the Washington Examiner he is not a supporter of the QAnon movement, but “my feeling about the QAnon movement is that many people who wouldn’t previously have done their own research, but instead blindly followed the media have now been inspired to do so.”
Straka complained about the media coverage of his speech, saying that “the liberal media are blatant liars” for calling him a QAnon supporter.
“If people are now inspired to search for the truth that’s a positive thing,” he said.
Straka did not immediately respond to further questions from the Washington Examiner about why he used QAnon’s slogan if he wasn’t a supporter, whether he was concerned about the QAnon movement, and what he thought about the FBI’s stance on QAnon. Straka did subsequently tweet out a condemnation of an article about the speech.
The FBI’s May memo cited two allegedly QAnon-inspired incidents. In Tuscon, Arizona, the leader of an unofficial local veterans aid group claimed without evidence to have discovered a child sex trafficking camp and then proceeded to allege a law enforcement cover-up. The leader and other armed men searched other locations and allegedly harassed, threatened, and "doxxed" critics they believed to be involved. In another incident, a man used an armored truck to block bridge traffic at the Hoover Dam and made political demands before he fled into Arizona, where body armor, riles, ammo, and a flash-bang device were found in his vehicle after his arrest, according to authorities.
The lawyers for Anthony Comello, who allegedly shot and killed Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali of the Gambino crime family, claimed in July that the murder wasn’t part of a sophisticated hit but rather a botched citizen’s arrest inspired by Comello’s belief in the QAnon conspiracy.
Beyond QAnon, the FBI memo warned that a variety of other conspiracy theories could also lead to violence and even domestic terrorism too. The bureau pointed to the Pizzagate conspiracy, seen by some as a precursor of QAnon, which alleged that a Democrat-led pedophilia ring was being run out of Washington, D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong Pizza. The FBI noted that the conspiracy ultimately inspired a man to show up at the shop firing a weapon at a door lock and pointing the gun at an employee.
https://www.scribd.com/document/420477642/420379775-FBI-Conspiracy-Theory-Redacted