ron watkins 8chan Q

belated?

see 8kun chan

HANG MIKE PENCE JAN 6

TRUMP RETWEETS RON W AND ATTY LIN WOOD AROUND JAN 6

finished last of 7 in 2022 primary

===

q into the storm hbo

===

NEWSWEEK JAN 6 2021 8 PM?

With just hours to go until Congress meets to count the Electoral College votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's election victory, some of the main advocates behind the QAnon conspiracy theory are turning their attention to Vice President Mike Pence amid desperate hopes he will somehow help President Donald Trump overturn the election results.

Supporters of the radical conspiracy theory have continually pushed disputed claims or just plain misinformation regarding the election since November, fueled by Trump's continuing assertion that he only lost as a result of widespread voter fraud.

The latest prediction from the radical movement—following on from every single claim previously proven completely wrong—is that the outgoing vice president will play the so-called "Pence Card" during his constitutional role as presiding officer of the Senate and reject the Electoral College votes declaring Biden the 306-232 winner.

It is unclear what they expect Pence to actually do during his purely ceremonial role prescribed by law and the Constitution.

This hasn't stopped Trump himself appearing to throw Pence under the bus, tweeting that Pence has the "power to reject fraudulently chosen electors" and telling his supporters at a rally in Georgia on Monday night that he hopes Pence "comes through for us."

Following reports thatPence had to inform the president that he does not have the power to block Congress' certification of Biden's win, Trump issued a statement claiming that he and the vice president are "in total agreement" that he has several options, including decertifying the results or sending them back to the states.

Ahead of Wednesday's session, some of the most prominent figures behind the QAnon movement are now suggesting that if Pence does not stop the democratic process and help Trump remain in the White House, it is not because he is unable to but because he is a "traitor" to the president and their cause.

On Tuesday, Ron Watkins, former administrator of the controversial messageboard site 8Kun which is used as a hub for the QAnon conspiracy, tweeted a link to claims he said was proof that Pence and former House Speaker Paul Ryan had been "conspiring against" Trump in 2016.

The link shows a series of emails claiming to be from the project manager of a Pence-Ryan 2016 campaign website that was "called off after Trump won his second debate." However, the email chain is entirely fake and was created for parody news site RealTrueNews.org.

The fake news website, created by Marco Chacon, duped a number of conservative websites amid the 2016 election, including one which said Hillary Clinton described potential voters as a "bucket of losers" during a speech to Goldman Sachs. The site even has the slogan "fake, but accurate" under its online banner.

Discussing the Pence-Ryan email story picked up by Watkins, Chacon told NBC News: "It's an absurd story told in an absurd manner with absurd trappings. This is a testament to the power of confirmation bias. QAnon supporters literally can't tell the difference between truth and fantasy when it comes to anything with a partisan valence."

Watkins' tweet sharing the fake news was retweeted by attorney Lin Wood, a Trump supporting QAnon follower who has the abbreviation of its slogan "where we go one we go all" in his Twitter bio.

"Answer is YES," Wood tweeted in response to Watkins asking if Pence and Ryan conspired to get Trump "off the ticket" in October 2016.

"Paul Ryan & Mike Pence have been conspiring against Trump since 2016 to defeat President in 2020. These 2 traitors to We The People actually think Pence/Ryan will win 2024. Let them know what you think about their plans," Wood said.

Wood, who worked with fellow QAnon-supporting lawyer Sidney Powell in the widely dismissed and mocked "Kraken" lawsuits attempting to overturn election results, has posted dangerous and unhinged tweets to his 1.1 million followers in recent weeks, resulting in the GOP continually distancing themselves from him.

These include calling for martial law to help Trump win the presidency; wildly claiming Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is being blackmailed by the "Lizard Squad" hacking group after being forced to rape and murder a child on video, without offering any evidence; and suggesting Pence could "face execution by firing squad" after being arrested for treason.

In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly shared tweets from both Wood and Watkins which he believes help his claim that he won the election.

Speaking to NBC, Chacon said he is concerned about what QAnon supporters will do next after Biden is certified the winner of the Electoral Vote and later inaugurated.

"It seems like they've decided there's nothing but civil war," he said.

Wood has been contacted for comment.

===

jan 6 QANON INVOLVEMENT:

omg

jan 6

From 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on January 5, a series of Trump rallies were held at Freedom Plaza.^[154] Notable speakers included Alex Jones, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and Roger Stone.^[161]

Both Flynn and Stone had received presidential pardons in prior weeks. On December 8, Trump pardoned retired US Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to "willfully and knowingly" making false statements to the FBI about communications with the Russian ambassador. Flynn, a prominent QAnon proponent, participated in the D.C. events on January 5, while his brother, U.S. Army general Charles Flynn, would participate in a conference call on January 6 when he would refuse permission to deploy the National Guard after the breach of the Capitol.^[162]

162

Bunch, Will (February 7, 2021). "Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and the criminal conspiracy case of U.S. v. Donald Trump". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on August 26, 2023. Retrieved November 25, 2023.

On December 23, Trump pardoned Roger Stone, who had been found guilty at trial of witness tampering, making false statements to Congress, and obstruction. Stone, who had longtime ties to both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, employed Oath Keepers as security on January 5.^[163] Stone's Oath-Keeper driver was later convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in plotting and executing the following day's attack.^[164]...

Endangering Mike Pence

On January 5, after Vice President Mike Pence refused to participate in the fake electors plot, Trump warned that he would have to publicly criticize him. This prompted Pence's chief of staff to become concerned for Pence's safety and to alert Pence's Secret Service detail to the perceived threat.^[87][334] At 3:23 a.m. on the morning of January 6, QAnon leader Ron Watkins posted a tweet accusing Pence of orchestrating a coup against Trump and linked to a blog post which called for "the immediate arrest of [Pence], for treason".^{[335][336][337}]

:{:{At 2:24, while Pence was in hiding in the Capitol, Trump tweeted that Pence "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done".^[338][339] Trump followers on far-right social media called for Pence to be hunted down, and the mob began chanting, "Where is Pence?" and "Find Mike Pence!"^[340] Outside, the mob chanted, "Hang Mike Pence!", which some crowds continued to chant as they stormed the Capitol;^[339] at least three rioters were overheard by a reporter as saying that they wanted to find Pence and execute him as a "traitor" by hanging him from a tree outside the building.^[341] }:

One official recalled that: "The members of the [Vice President's Secret Service detail] at this time were starting to fear for their own lives... they're screaming and saying things like 'say goodbye to the family'".^[342] Alerted by a staffer to the threat against Pence, Trump reportedly replied "So what?".^[343] According to witnesses, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told coworkers that Trump complained about Pence being escorted to safety and then stated something suggesting that Pence should be hanged.^[344][345] Pence later argued that Trump's "reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day".^[346]}:

On April 3, 2025, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced Pence as the recipient of the JFK Profile in Courage Award "for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021".^[347]

...

---

Right-wing media and social media users spread conspiracy theories about the Trump rally shooting

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN & PAYTON ARMSTRONG

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM JASON CAMPBELL & NOAH DOWE

PUBLISHED 07/16/24

Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, right-wing media figures and social media users have spread baseless conspiracy theories and claims about the shooting.

They have amplified a 4chan hoax that the Secret Service gave a stand-down order during the shooting; made baseless allegations that Alex Soros was connected to the shooting; falsely claimed a protester at a 2016 Trump rally was the shooter; suggested the shooting could be attributed to the intelligence community, the “deep state,” foreign actors, or an “RNC/Israeli hit job”; and connected the assassination attempt to biblical prophecy and “the hand of God.”

## A gunman attempted to shoot Trump at a July 13 rally

On July 13, a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, injuring Trump, killing one rally attendee, and seriously wounding two others. The 20-year-old suspected gunman reportedly opened fire from a rooftop near the rally, and was fatally shot by the Secret Service. His motivation remains unclear. The New York Times, [7/14/24]

## Far-right figures spread a 4chan hoax that there was a stand-down order before the shooting

:{A 4chan poster falsely claimed to be a law enforcement sniper who was at the Pennsylvania rally and said the Secret Service “refused to give the order to take out the perp.” A user on 4chan’s far-right “politically incorrect” message board (commonly known as “/pol/”) claimed to be “the officer in the famous photo of the two snipers on the roof at Trump's rally” and said that they “had the assassin in my sights for at least 3 minutes, but the head of the secret service refused to give the order to take out the perp.” The Associated Press reported that the claim was false, noting that “the Secret Service and the Butler Police Department say they have no agents, officers or employees with the name of the person claiming to be the sharpshooter.” :{4chan,:(style="background-color:#ff8000ff"):}:** [7/14/24; The Associated Press, 7/15/24]}:

Social media users earned tens of thousands of shares and likes promoting the 4chan post. Multiple users, including QAnon figure Nicholas Veniamin, shared the 4chan posts or its claims, raking up tens of thousands of shares and “likes” on X and Instagram. According to CrowdTangle, posts on Instagram sharing the 4chan hoax received more than 80,000 interactions. Twitter/X, [7/14/24, 7/14/24, 7/14/24, 7/15/24; Instagram, 7/14/24; CrowdTangle, accessed 7/16/24; Media Matters, 3/4/22]

A post amplifying the 4chan hoax was one of the top posts on Reddit’s conspiracy subreddit. On the prominent subreddit “r/conspiracy,” a user posted an image of the 4chan post — though they added, “BIG grain of salt recommended.” The post was one of the top posts in terms of “upvotes” in a 24-hour period between July 14 and July 15. Reddit, [7/14/24, 7/15/24; Media Matters, 9/18/23]

## QAnon figures revived a baseless conspiracy theory that Alex Soros had threatened Trump, apparently suggesting it was connected to the shooting

In January, Alex Soros was baselessly accused of threatening Trump after posting an article from The Atlantic on social media. Conspiracy theorists baselessly accused Alex Soros — the son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros and a frequent target of right-wing attacks and antisemitic conspiracy theories — of threatening Trump after he posted an Atlantic article that featured stock photos of a bullet hole and someone holding cash on X (formerly Twitter). Media Matters, [1/23/24]

QAnon figure Woke Societies after the shooting: “Don’t forgot Alex Soros posted this in January of this year. Demons.” Telegram, [7/13/24; Media Matters, 4/18/22]

QAnon figure Pepe Lives Matter: “Remember when Alex Soros tweeted a bullet shot with the number 47 in this ominous tweet that people thought was about Donald Trump and now he was just shot.” Telegram, [7/13/24, 1/7/21]

QAnon figure Ben Moore, known online as “Sun Tzu,” responded to a user claiming Alex Soros “hinted at what was coming in a X post” by asking if George and Alex Soros should “be designated as enemy combatants at this point.” Twitter/X, [7/15/24; Media Matters, 4/24/24]

Ann Vandersteel, who has promoted QAnon, posted an image of Alex Soros’ tweet with the text “Remember this?” Twitter/X, [7/13/24; Media Matters, 6/7/24]

A user on the online forum GreatAwakening, which is dedicated to the QAnon conspiracy theory, shared a post saying “Y’all remember when Alex Soros posted $47 and a bullet hole?” GreatAwakening, [7/14/24; Media Matters, 6/30/20]

## Far-right figures falsely claimed a protester at a 2016 Trump rally was the shooter

QAnon figure QAnon John falsely claimed that “a guy affiliated with ANTIFA” was actually the shooter. John Sabal, known online as “QAnon John,” falsely posted that the shooter was actually “a guy affiliated with ANTIFA that was actually arrested back in 2016 for being involved in an Anti-Trump protest in Pittsburgh,” and that in response he was “calling on the FBI, DHS & DOJ to designate ANTIFA AS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.” Reuters reported that the claim is false, noting that the 2016 protester was “not the suspect identified by the FBI as the shooter” and that the photo shared online “does not resemble the suspect identified by authorities.” Gab, [7/14/24; Dallas Observer, 8/31/21; Reuters, 7/15/24; WTAE, 4/14/16]

Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone claimed that “a number of people have contacted me to say that the shooter is not the man they’ve identified.” During an appearance on conspiracy theory network Infowars, Stone said that “a number of people have contacted me to say that the shooter is not the man they’ve identified, but rather” someone else — the same person mentioned by QAnon John — “who appears to more closely resemble the picture we've been shown that is allegedly the corpse of the shooter.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 7/15/24]

Far-right figures baselessly suggested the shooting could be attributed to the “intelligence agencies,” the “deep state,” foreign actors, or “an RNC/Israeli hit job”

White nationalist Nick Fuentes floated the idea that “the intelligence agencies” could have been behind Trump‘s shooting. During an X Space discussion following the attempted shooting, Fuentes claimed that “it was either the intelligence agencies or it was these other guys who are gonna benefit with a more favorable advocate in the White House” — after listing people and entities including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukraine — who “tried to knock him out” with the attempted shooting. Twitter/X, [7/13/24]

Alex Jones claimed that the Trump shooting was “clearly” done by the “deep state.” In the X Space with Fuentes, Jones claimed of the attempted shooting, “Clearly this was deep state.” He said it was evidence of “the deep state trying to kill him,” adding, “This was no accident, in my view.” Twitter/X, [7/13/24]

White nationalist Stew Peters baselessly claimed it was “an RNC/Israeli hit job.” According to Peters, “Everyone is blaming Biden and the Dems when this was clearly an RNC/Israeli hit job.” Twitter/X, [7/13/24; Media Matters, 3/13/23]

Right-wing personality Candace Owens said that if she were a conspiracy theorist, she might think the FBI was behind the Trump shooting. While discussing on her YouTube show the FBI’s efforts to access the alleged shooter’s phone (which it has since done), Owens said, “If I were a conspiracy theorist, and I’m not — I’m not a conspiracy theorist — some people might be thinking, though, those conspiracy theorists might be thinking, like, maybe it’s because the FBI did it. Maybe the FBI doesn’t want to get into the phone that connects the kid to the deep state.” YouTube, *Candace Owens*, [7/15/24; The New York Times, 7/15/24]

QAnon figure Clandestine claimed, “Whether this was a CIA-coordinated plot, or just a lone shooter, the Deep State are responsible regardless.” Jacob Creech, known online as “Clandestine,” added, “Either they planned the hit, or their years of violent rhetoric and endless MSM propaganda, created the vitriol that led to the attack.” Telegram, [7/14/24; Anti-Defamation League, 4/5/22]

## Far-right Christian media and right-wing social media influencers invoked biblical prophecy and “the hand of God” in discussing the shooting

Charisma News, which has been a sponsor of the ReAwaken America Tour led by Michael Flynn, published multiple articles linking the assassination attempt to biblical prophecy. An article titled “3 Prophecies Fulfilled with the Trump Assassination Attempt” claimed that “at least three different prophetic voices have had words about something massive that was coming to America.” Another article, titled “Prophecy Foretold Attempted Assassination Months in Advance” and focused on a March 2024 interview with guest Brandon Biggs, stated that “the events of Saturday, July 13, appear to have fulfilled the prophecy Biggs gave in startlingly accurate fashion.” Charisma News, [7/14/24, 7/14/24; Rolling Stone, 2/28/23]

Self-described prophet Amanda Grace said “prayer matters” because the assassination attempt was “meant to kill him and by the hand of God it grazed him” and claimed the “Lord warned” her that it would happen. Grace added: “Saul did this to David. This is that same spirit rising up. Saul attempted to kill David on multiple occasions and never was able to succeed.” She also suggested that God had warned her multiple times that Trump would be hurt, claiming that “the Lord warned [on] June 8” and “he warned it again two days ago.” YouTube, *Ark of Grace Ministries*,[; Media Matters, 5/30/24] VID]

While discussing the assassination attempt on FlashPoint, commentator and self-described prophet Lance Wallnau mentioned a prophetic “decree” and attributed Trump’s survival to “the impulse of God or an angel that enabled him to not be hit.”Wallnau said that “the brush with mortality is a moment also for President Trump to realize that God himself is preserving him. And let’s agree together in this decree that he will have an ear to hear in every key situation what the spirit of God is actually saying. And he’ll wisely and shrewdly navigate, turning to the left or to the right as the wisdom of God dictates, and that he will stay one step ahead of death.” Twitter/X, [7/13/24; Rolling Stone, 9/29/22]

Far-right figures Dom Lucre and Jack Posobiec shared a video of supposed prophet Brandon Biggs predicting three months ago that Trump would be injured. Lucre wrote that “the prophet Brandon Bible’s prophecy about Donald Trump’s assassination attempt from 3 months ago has resurfaced” and said, “This has been biblical since day one.” Posobiec, who has a penchant for spreading conspiracy theories, amplified the video to his 2.5 million followers. Twitter/X, [7/14/24, 7/14/24; The Washington Post, 8/15/17; Forbes, 7/27/23]

Christian nationalist pastor Sean Feucht shared the video of Biggs and wrote, “Prophecy from March 14, 2024 about Trump being shot in the ear in an assassination attempt!” Twitter/X, [7/14/24; Media Matters, 9/14/23]

---

beast 10 22

MAGA Conspiracy Tours Plagued With ‘Grifter’ Allegations

KNIVES OUT

Conspiracy theorists are hitting the road together, with tickets selling for $149. What could go wrong?

Kelly Weill

Reporter

Updated Oct. 26, 2022

By Oct. 19, Truth Tour 2 was near its end. So was its leader’s patience.

“I will NOT take it any longer,” the organizer, Lewis Herms wrote on the messaging app Telegram. “It appears as if the lies, rumors and infiltration of the Truth Tour and it's [sic] participants is reaching epic levels.”

For weeks, Truth Tour 2 had been on the road, bringing its eclectic mix of fringe speakers to hotel conference rooms across the country. There were COVID denialists, election denialists, and at least one globe denialist. But nestled among the semen-retention evangelists and a self-described “Shamanic Priestess™ of the Magdalene Mysteries School” were figures with startlingly long reaches in rightwing politics.

Those marquee names included Jim Watkins, the 8kun owner speculated to be behind the QAnon conspiracy theory (he denies the claims) and Judy Mikovitz, a doctor who starred in the Covid denial film “Plandemic.” And there was one of the tour’s biggest stars,Juan O. Savin (real name Wayne Willott), who got his hands in real politics by assembling a coalition of election-denying secretary of state candidates - a fact bragged during Truth Tour appearances.

[This QAnon Leader Could Control Key Elections in 2024

‘PLAN A: SEE JUAN’

Will Sommer]

And for just $49 to $149 in 17 cities, followers of fringe politics got a chance to see them all.

But the relative success of the roadshow was not enough to spare the series from rightwing infighting, with critics accusing Herms, conspiracy influencer and founder of Truth Tour 2,of unjustly cashing in on the MAGA movement.

Herms did not take kindly to these accusations.

===

https://www.justsecurity.org/81729/covering-the-january-6th-select-committee-a-primer/

gold trump and assoc overturn: GA, fake electors

grn $ eg who fund militia travel

blue cops

red team rally planners stop steal

purple: dom terror: key figures that advanced baseless election fraud claims and courted the QAnon conspiracy movement included former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn and Trump affiliated lawyers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood. All three were banned from Twitter for sharing QAnon conspiracies. Figures including Mike Lindell, Phil Waldron, and Ron Watkins (identified by some experts as Q) coordinated to advance false election claims

===

https://ballotpedia.org/Ron_Watkins

===

2 DAYS BEFORE WILL BE WILD

December 17, 2020

Ron Watkins, former administrator for the extremist bulletin board 8chan, urges Trump to “cross the Rubicon.” The phrase refers to Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River with an army to install himself as sovereign, which precipitated starting a bloody Roman civil war. The phrase is echoed by Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward days later.

(Source: Twitter)

The Women for America First bus tour, meanwhile, pays a visit to a firearms academy near Nashville, Tennessee, and tour participant Jennifer Lynn Lawrence posts a video of herself, Kylie Jane Kremer, Dustin Stockton and Amy Kremer posing with rifles.The website for Tactical Response, the location where the video was reportedly filmed, features a tagline on its website: “We teach good people to kill bad people.”

(Source: Facebook)

Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona alleges on Twitter that 700,000 votes were compromised and that Trump won Arizona despite the stated election results. Gosar includes the hashtag #StopTheSteal and tags Ali Alexander in his post.

(Source: Twitter)

December 19, 2020

Trump tweets out a call for his supporters to protest in D.C. on the day when Electoral College votes are set to be certified by Congress. “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” Trump says, adding, “Big protest in DC on January 6th.Be there, will be wild!”

...

December 22, 2020

8chan administrator Ron Watkins shares information for a group on the site Clouthub titled “Patriot Caravan 45.” The page contains details for organizing travel to D.C. for protests on Jan. 6.

(Source: Twitter)

That same day, the DFRLab observes a graphic circulating among unlawful militia groups and conspiracy theorist communities online with instructions for joining vehicle caravans heading to D.C. for the protests.

(Source: DFRLab)

===

an 2 22

According to a report from the New York Times, two teams of "linguistic detectives" have arrived at the same conclusion pinpointing the founders of the conspiracy theory cult QAnon.

Noting that the QAnon phenomenon appears to have been kicked off on a popular online message board in 2017 with an ominous post reading "Open your eyes. Many in our govt worship Satan,” the report adds that Paul Furber, a South African software developer became the first "apostle" on the cult that later exploded and helped pave the way, in the long run, to the Capitol riot on Jan 6th.

As the Times reports, questions about who "Q" is has long bedeviled journalists, investigators and the public at large and now it appears that the answer is close at hand.

According to the Times' David Kirkpatrick, "... two teams of forensic linguists say their analysis of the Q texts show that Mr. Furber, one of the first online commentators to call attention to the earliest messages, actually played the lead role in writing them."

"Sleuths hunting for the writer behind Q have increasingly overlooked Mr. Furber and focused their speculation on anotherQAnon booster: Ron Watkins,who operated a website where the Q messages began appearing in 2018 and is now running for Congress in Arizona," the report adds. "And the scientists say they found evidence to back up those suspicions as well. Mr. Watkins appears to have taken over from Mr. Furber at the beginning of 2018. Both deny writing as Q."

Adding, "The studies provide the first empirical evidence of who invented the toxic QAnon myth," Kirkpatrick goes on to explain, "Computer scientists use machine learning to compare subtle patterns in texts that a casual reader could not detect. QAnon believers attribute this 2017 message to an anonymous military insider known as Q."

"The two analyses — one by Claude-Alain Roten and Lionel Pousaz of OrphAnalytics, a Swiss start-up; the other by the French computational linguists Florian Cafiero and Jean-Baptiste Camps — built on long-established forms of forensic linguistics that can detect telltale variations, revealing the same hand in two texts," the report continues.

According to mathematician Patrick Juola of Duquesne University, he thinks the two teams nailed it.

“What’s really powerful is the fact that both of the two independent analyses showed the same overall pattern,” he explained.

You can read in-depth details describing how they arrived at their conclusions here.

===

QAnon promoter Ron Watkins is running for Congress in ...

AOL.com

https://www.aol.com › qanon-promoter-ron-watkins-ru...

Watkins said that he was running for the Republican nomination in Arizona's 1st Congressional District to defeat the "dirtiest Democrat in the DC swamp," ...

Suspected QAnon Creator Ron Watkins Loses ...

The Daily Beast

https://www.thedailybeast.com › suspected-qanon-creator...

The man suspected to be behind the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory lost his bid to unseat the Democratic incumbent in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District on ...

What ever happened to QAnon?

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › politics › 2024/04/02

Apr 2, 2024 — As the 2020 election approached, President Donald Trump had two problematic groups of supporters that he didn't want to alienate.

Ron Watkins

Politico

https://www.politico.com › tag › ron-watkins

Latest news, headlines, analysis, photos and videos on Ron Watkins.

Twitter Reinstates QAnon Kingpin Ron Watkins

Rolling Stone

https://www.rollingstone.com › politics › politics-news

Jan 10, 2023 — The Twitter account of QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins has been restored to the platform by Elon Musk.

===

Ron Watkins, a central figure in the QAnon conspiracy movement currently running for Congress in Arizona as a Republican, reported making a $95,000 loan to his campaign on March 29. Watkins’ loan came just four days after his campaign amended a campaign finance report to include over $20,000 in funds that it originally failed to disclose, and one day after the Federal Election Commission sent a letter asking Watkins to disclose the source of those funds before May 2.

QAnon is an alt-right conspiracy theory that began on 4chan message boards. The theory, which draws from other debunked conspiracy theories such as “Pizzagate,” and has been linked to kidnapping schemes and the Jan. 6 insurrection. Teams of forensic linguists found that Watkins played a role in helping write 8kun posts from “Q,” an anonymous poster who claimed to be a high-ranking government official with insider knowledge of former President Donald Trump’s White House, as early as 2018.

In October 2021, Watkins registered to run in the 1st Congressional District of Arizona, which is currently represented by Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.), but later amended his candidacy to run in the 2nd Congressional District of Arizona after new congressional maps were approved in the state. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), who currently represents the 2nd district, announced her retirement ahead of this year’s redistricting.

The Cook Political Report rates the district as “likely Republican,” despite its Democratic incumbent.

Watkins’ campaign funding

Watkins raised $83,000 between January and March 2022, about $20,000 less than the the campaign reported as operating expenditures, according to FEC filings. The campaign ended the first quarter of 2022 with $100,257 cash on hand — all but about $5,000 came from Watkins’ personal loan.

The Watkins campaign’s fundraising remains far behind other contenders for Arizona’s 2nd District congressional seat. O’Halleran raised $578,000 in the first quarter, and ended March with $1.7 million cash on hand. Republican candidate and former Navy SEAL Eli Crane raised $$647,000 in the quarter, and has $483,000 cash on hand.

Outside of the loan, the largest reported contribution to Watkins’ campaign in the first quarter of 2022 was $3,127 from Rumen Naumovski. Naumovski is the founder of marketing firm Raww Digital and Resist the Mainstream, which describes itself as “a media company for people who have lost trust in the mainstream media.”

Other contributions to Watkins’ campaign include $2,222 from Jeffrey Walker, the founder of an Arizona pool cleaning company, and $1,000 from Avery Kramer, who recently became the chief operating officer of biotech research company Symbrosia.

Only 11 of the about 70 contributions to the campaign in the first quarter of 2022, including contributions from Watkins and Walker, are from donors with Arizona addresses. The campaign has relied primarily on out-of-state money and drew only three donors from Arizona in 2021.

Watkins’ campaign paid PIN Business Network over $5,000 for an “email blast” in January. The founder and former CEO of PIN, Joe Oltmann, has been described as “influential in stoking election conspiracy claims” and was nominated by Colorado Republicans as a gubernatorial candidate earlier this month. He declined the nomination after endorsing two election-deniers, state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, for statewide offices.

Peters, who was recently indicted on criminal election tampering charges, is running for Colorado secretary of state. Hanks has previously touted his attendance at the Jan. 6 insurrection to show his loyalty to Trump.

In February, Watkins’ campaign made a $500 contribution to Citizens for Gail Golec, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors candidate Gail Golec’s political action committee. Golec is a noted conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed citizen journalist who gave up her job as a realtor to investigate election fraud full-time.

Watkins’ father Jim Watkins, best known for operating 8kun and supporting QAnon, made a $2,354 donation to the campaign described as “T-shirts” in October 2021.

The Watkins campaign reported receiving two separate cryptocurrency contributions, both in Bitcoin. The donations came in November and December 2021, shortly after Watkins asked his 423,000 followers on the messaging app Telegram to donate Bitcoin to the campaign.

Republican primary elections will take place in Arizona on Aug. 2.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88g4x3/trump-endorsing-qanon-candidates

no lnx

Trump Is Pushing QAnon Candidates Into the GOP Mainstream

Trump is backing a number of candidates who’ve openly pushed QAnon’s wildest theories. By endorsing them, he’s mainstreaming the extremist movement.

By Cameron Joseph

WASHINGTON, US

October 20, 2021,

Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem got a coveted spot warming up the crowd for former President Donald Trump at an Iowa rally last week. Days later he was in Virginia, speaking onstage ahead of top Trump ally Steve Bannon.

And Finchem’s next big speech will be at a major QAnon conference in Las Vegas this weekend called “For God & Country: Patriot Double Down” alongside a number of other GOP candidates and elected officials that Trump has helped make right-wing stars.

Finchem, who’s running to be Arizona’s secretary of state, isn’t even the only Trump-endorsed candidate who wants to run elections in a swing state who will address the conference. Kristina Karamo, who Trump has endorsed in her bid to be Michigan secretary of state, is also slated to speak, as are a handful of other GOP lawmakers Trump has praised in the past.

“Come to the Patriot Double Down Where I will be speaking!!!” Karamo excitedly posted on her Facebook page.

Trump’s decision to endorse QAnon-affiliated candidates because they support his lies about the 2020 election has further mainstreamed the dangerous movement within the Republican Party.

“Trump is less concerned about whether these candidates support QAnon than he is about whether they support the Big Lie, and whether they will be in a position to help him if he decides to run again,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a QAnon and political extremism expert and professor at Queens University in Canada.

The liberal watchdog group Media Matters has identified 45 people already running for Congress who’ve promoted QAnon theories, as well as eight gubernatorial candidates and many more legislative candidates. Most are fringe candidates who won’t win their primaries, much less their elections. But the sheer number shows how deeply QAnon has sunk its teeth into the GOP.

“You’ve had an increase in QAnon-believing candidates out there coupled with Trump echoing and validating a lot of the sentiments,” Media Matters President Angelo Carusone told VICE News.

Trump’s embrace of Finchem, Karamo, and other fringe candidates elevates them within the conservative movement and gives them cachet, even as they bolster his lies that the election was stolen from him with state-specific falsehoods. They, in turn, lend the street cred they get from their Trump endorsement to QAnon, offering wink-and-nod support to the movement by adopting its in-jokes and terminology, speaking at QAnon-adjacent rallies like this weekend’s Vegas gathering, or even more explicitly embracing it like Finchem has done.

[News

Donald Trump Jr. Is Going Full QAnon

PAUL BLEST

10.18.21]

By centering the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from him as his first and only concern, and by pushing candidates who have trumpeted those lies the loudest and most effectively without any concern for their even wilder beliefs, Trump is inviting the QAnon movement through the front door of the Republican Party.

Carusone argued that the spread of QAnon is troubling not just because of its poisonous lies and threats of violence but also because it helps mainstream the candidates who back Trump’s election lie. Creating a new category of out-there candidates means the numerous Republicans who echo Trump’s lies are now simply seen as rank-and-file lawmakers, shifting the Overton Window of political discourse by normalizing them, and pushing fringe falsehoods into the GOP mainstream.

“Now election deniers who don’t think that Democrats and the media are vampires therefore are the ‘reasonable people,’” Carusone said. "There’ll be a point in time… that some of the QAnon ideas now that were at the conventions we were seeing last summer become part and parcel and indistinguishable from republican orthodoxy. A lot of the ideas will become standard Republican fare.”

That’s already happened. The concept of the “deep state” originated on QAnon message boards, was laundered through right-wing media and became a staple of Trump’s own speeches.And QAnon was the first to push the idea that the 2020 election would be stolen from Trump, months before the president himself began pushing that lie. Now, polls show that roughly two-thirds of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from him, and a quarter of Republicans believe the QAnon falsehood that Trump will be reinstated as president by 2022. Trump is basing his endorsements and support on whether candidates support or oppose his lies about widespread election fraud.

Trump has repeatedly refused to reject QAnon. When NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie pressed him to reject the movement a few weeks before the 2020 election, he refused to do so. “I just don’t know about QAnon,” Trump said, before admitting he’s in on the joke: “They are very much against pedophilia, they fight it very hard.”

And his son has been happy to cozy up to the movement even more explicitly.

“They should start reporting the number of kids that go missing every day the way they report COVID numbers,”Donald Trump Jr. posted to his 5.2 million Instagram followers on Sunday.

This wink-and-nod from the former president and his closest allies reassures Republicans with QAnon-tinged views that they’re safe to come out, normalizing their fringe views.

[News

QAnon’s Ron Watkins Says He’s Running For Congress

CAMERON JOSEPH, DAVID GILBERT

10.14.21]

They’re now growing bolder, reassured that Trump and his broader movement have their backs. Trump endorsed a recent rally at the Michigan Capitol to protest the state’s election results. Michigan state Rep. Dair Rendon, one of the featured speakers, took the stage wearing an American flag pin with a gold Q emblazoned on it.

When asked why she wore the pin, Rendon said she did it partly because she knew there were plenty of like-minded people in the crowd.

“A lot of the people that are here today follow the same channels and they understand,” she told VICE News after laying out her pro-Q views.

Karamo, who also spoke at that rally, hasn’t publicly echoed QAnon’s core conspiracies. But she’s been happy to push other falsehoods. Karamo recently accused Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of being “obsessed with corrupting our election process,” and falsely accused her and other Democratic election officials of intentionally rigging the 2020 election.

“These people were placed in those battleground states strategically to ensure that there was massive cheating and fraud in the election,” Karamo said on One America News Network last week.

But Finchem’s approach to QAnon is more like a bear-hug than a wink and a nod. He has posted QAnon content to his social media accounts on multiple occasions, and has explicitly endorsed the conspiracy theory’s foundational tenet: that a secret cabal of satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood elites, and members of a shadowy government “deep state” are running a child sex ring and are hell-bent on destroying Trump.

“They're finding so many kids. We’ve got a serious problem in this nation. And that's one of the things that disturbs me so much about our current congressional state of affairs. There's a lot of people involved in a pedophile network and the distribution of children, and that makes me absolutely sick,” he said during a March appearance on the religious conservative network Victory News. “And unfortunately, there's a whole lot of elected officials that are involved in that.”

[News

Trump Is Endorsing Candidates Who Could Try to Help Him Steal 2024

CAMERON JOSEPH

09.24.21]

Trump doesn’t seem too concerned about Finchem’s views, however. He’s just happy the Arizona lawmaker has gone all-in to bolster Trump’s election lies.

“Mark Finchem is with us tonight, and what a job he’s done. Mark, great job, Mark. You’re going to win big, Mark. Because he’s tough. They say he’s controversial. It’s not controversial. He’s actually not controversial,” Trump said during his Iowa rally.

Finchem and Karamo will be with like-minded folks this weekend. The conference is being organized by John Sabal, known as “QAnon John,” who recently called for a “military mutiny” against President Joe Biden and has promoted openly antisemitic propaganda. Three other lawmakers who were involved in Arizona’s partisan and deeply flawed “audit” of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results are slated to attend: Arizona state Sens. Wendy Rogers and Sonny Borrelli, who Trump has praised in past statements, and state Rep. Leo Biasiucci.

They’ll rub elbows with a who’s who of QAnon influencers: Jim and Ron Watkins, who some experts believe is “Q” himself. The father and son have been instrumental in turning QAnon into a worldwide phenomenon on their message board 8kun (previously known as 8chan). It was here that the anonymous person or people behind QAnon posted exclusively for almost three years, during which time the movement went from a fringe conspiracy to a movement with tens of millions of adherents.

Ron Watkins launched a bid for Congress in Arizona last week, further weaving QAnon into the fabric of the GOP. Just days earlier he posted a picture with Kari Lake, Trump’s candidate for governor, on his hugely popular Telegram channel saying he had just dined with the former TV anchor.Lake downplayed the meeting, telling VICE News she met Watkins at a meet-and-greet with dozens of other people—but didn’t respond when asked if she knew who Watkins was and his history in promoting and facilitating the QAnon conspiracy.

QAnon’s followers have actively tried to make it harder to track their work. In recent months, many followers have tried to dump the QAnon branding, claiming it was simply a creation of the mainstream media. Instead they reference the same conspiracies in more oblique ways. But it’s not that subtle: The event’s logo features a queen of hearts and a seven—and in case the prominently featured Q isn’t enough, those two cards add up to 17 in blackjack (Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, and the number has become symbolically important to the movement).

The event’s promotional video, which heavily features Watkins (aka CodeMonkeyZ), also includes the QAnon slogans “Where we go one, we go all” and “The Great Awakening.”

[Facebook Knew It Was Fueling QAnon

DAVID GILBERT

10.05.21]

It’s not just those speaking at the conference, either. Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who like Finchem was in the crowd during the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, has repeatedly used the hashtags #QAnon and #TheGreatAwakening on Twitter.

Mastriano was once a nobody in the Pennsylvania Legislature, but he has worked his way onto Trump’s radar and into his good graces by relentlessly pushing the lie that Pennsylvania’s elections had seen widespread fraud. With Trump’s help—and attacks from the president against other Republicans who weren’t keen on his plan—Mastriano has helped push the Pennsylvania GOP into a sham audit modeled after Arizona’s mess.

Sabal’s June QAnon event in Dallas drew Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller as well as then-Texas Republican Party Chairman Allen West, who made the QAnon slogan “We are the storm” into the Texas Republican Party slogan during his tenure. West, who has insisted he’s “not into internet conspiracy theories ” and denied that it was borrowed from QAnon, is now running for Texas governor. General Michael Flynn, Trump’s onetime national security advisor and a major figure in the QAnon movement, endorsed West onstage—shortly after he seemed to endorse the idea of a coup against Joe Biden along the lines of the successful Burmese military coup against that country’s elected president.

All this increased acceptance of QAnon candidates is alarming extremism experts.

“Having more and more candidates in high office who aren't concerned with facts, truth, science, or evidence—and who routinely erode social trust in modern institutions, except when it comes to getting people out to vote for them—is deeply harmful the long-term health of democracy,” said Amarasingam. “Many QAnon supporters have even gone a step further, calling for—and gleefully anticipating—an outright military coup or the assassination of political leaders. Adding more of this kind of discourse to the public sphere brings nothing good.”

David Gilbert contributed reporting to this story.

TAGGED:

EXTREMISM DONALD TRUMP GOP REPUBLICANS BIG LIE

===

ref vice

no lnx pix

QAnon Is Becoming Even More Antisemitic

One of the movement’s biggest influencers just encouraged his followers to watch a 10-part neo-Nazi film.

By David Gilbert

October 18, 2021,

[A man wearing a 'Defund the Media' QAnon shirt is seen at a "Stop the Steal" rally against the results of the U.S. Presidential election outside the Georgia State Capitol on November 18, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. ]

[Disinfo Dispatch Padding

Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it's causing, and what we should do about it.]

The organizer of a major QAnon conference in Las Vegas later this week, where at least four sitting GOP lawmakers speak on stage, shared a neo-Nazi film with his 70,000 followers on Sunday evening.

John Sabal, who’s known online as QAnon John, is preparing for Thursday’s “For God and Country: Patriot Double Down” conference, but on Sunday night he took time out of his busy schedule to share a post about people who had praised “Europa – the Last Battle.” It’s a 10-part film that claims Jews created Communism and deliberately started both world wars as part of a plot to found Israel by provoking the innocent Nazis, who were only defending themselves.

“If you want to know the truth, well look no further. Here it is, escape the matrix and watch it today,” the post Sabal shared said.

Moments later, Sabal shared a direct link to allow his followers to watch the film on the alternative video-sharing site Rumble.

While this film has been shared by some of QAnon’s more fringe and extremist figures, the fact Sabal feels emboldened to share it so publicly is a testament to how antisemitic thinking has become normalized within the movement.

This was reflected in the comments under the posts from Sabal’s followers who offered no pushback against his support of such antisemitic content.

When one follower did attempt to criticize Sabal for posting the link, other members of the channel quickly attacked that user, claiming they were some sort of undercover agent of the “deep state.”

Others credulously claimed the user criticizing Sabal had misunderstood the film: “I'm sorry that's what you took away from our neo-Nazi film. It's really about how killing the Jews is necessary and good because they're not real Jews,” one of Sabal’s followers wrote.[CUFI red calf bs?]

After Sabal’s comments were highlighted by extremist researchers on Twitter, the posts mysteriously disappeared from his channel.

The video series is very well-known in extremist circles, yet apparently Sabal shared it completely innocently with his tens of thousands of followers.

“He had no idea that there was any anti-Semitism connected to that film,” Sabal’s partner Amy told VICE News in a message. “He has never even watched the movie. It was referred to him by a supposed ‘trusted’ source.”

Later this week, Sabal will host a raft of GOP lawmakers, including sitting Arizona Reps. Wendy Rogers and Sonny Borrelli. Also scheduled to speak are multiple Republican candidates running for secretary of state, including candidates in the swing states of Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada.

Despite calling himself “QAnon John,” and even though many of the movement’s biggest influencers will be sharing speaking time with members of the Republican Party, Sabal has in the past claimed this is not a QAnon conference. Among them will be Ron Watkins, who facilitated the rise of QAnon and who last week announced his plan to run for Congress.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/latest-attempt-to-undermine-the-presidential-election-birthed-from-another-disturbing-full-on-qanon-conspiracy/?rs=182

The 2020 presidential election was over several months ago, but there is still an audit underway in Maricopa County, Ariz. — and it's contributing to another full-blown conspiracy being perpetrated by QAnon believes.

According to The Daily Beast, audit watchers are now expressing concern about the presence of a man named**Ron Watkins**, an individual who is believed to have contributed to the birth of the whole QAnon conspiracy theory.

Although this recount should have no impact on the outcome of the presidential election sinceArizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Arizona Secretary of State and the state's Supreme Court chief justice have certified the results of the election, it has become a serious focal point for the conspiracy theorists that embraced former President Donald Trump's claims about the election being stolen.

The publication reports that there is speculation that Watkins is the "anonymous Q." While he has denied the speculation, he is known for perpetuating the latest conspiracies about the Maricopa audit by suggesting it could be "attacked by rioters."

In a post shared via Telegramjust two weeks ago, Watkins wrote, "Will Maricopa county deploy police to protect the auditors from rioters?" he posted on his Telegram channel in mid-April. "Will the police end up standing down? You cannot have information security without physical security."

Watkins also had help in raising concerns about the audit. Like him, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn also tossed around baseless and unfounded claims with no evidence to back his words. During a speech earlier this month, Flynn stoked fears about the audit, suggesting antifa and Black Lives Matter activists would be at the center of attacks on the audit.

"I'm telling you now, I'll say it today, because we have intel that they may be bringing people down from Portland and Seattle to disrupt," Flynn said. "I mean to disrupt finding the truth, discovering the truth?"

Despite the QAnon claims of unrest that could take place in Arizona, there is no evidence to support the faux concerns conspiracy theorists are attempting to push.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Early life:

Watkins was born in 1987. His father, Jim Watkins, is a former member of the United States Army, and Watkins grew up moving often because of his father's military service. His mother, Ton Sun Watkins, is from South Korea, and his parents met when his father was stationed there. They divorced when Watkins was a teenager, at which point Watkins began to live mostly with his mother.^[2]

Watkins spent his high school years in Mukilteo, Washington, the city where he lived for the longest period during his childhood. He attended Kamiak High School, where he was active in choir and theater, and graduated in 2005.^[2][12]

Activities[

8kun[

Role in QAnon[

For broader coverage of this topic, see QAnon.

QAnon is a discredited far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against former President Donald Trump, who is battling them.^[23] Watkins has played a major role in helping to amplify the theory.^[5][6][24] According to conspiracy theory expert Julian Feeld, QAnon adherents see Watkins as "the technical brain behind the platform where Q posts". Feeld has said that despite Watkins' lower profile in the movement compared to his father, he has "played just as big a role in the... movement's growth".^[5] Watkins has been described as a de facto QAnon leader.^[6]

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ronald_Watkins_%28cropped%29.jpg)

Watkins in 2018.

On January 20, 2021, QAnon followers struggled to reconcile that Joe Biden had been inaugurated with their beliefs that Trump would still become president, or that there would be a "Great Awakening" or "the Storm": a day on which Trump and military allies would gather their political opponents for execution.^[25]

Watkins appeared to be one of the figures abandoning the theory, posting on Telegram, "We gave it our all. Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able."^[25][26] QAnon researcher Travis View warned against believing Watkins, pointing to his past claim that he had quit 8kun to focus on his woodworking only to "[fill] the vacuum of Q by spreading conspiracy theories".^[25]

Numerous journalists and conspiracy theory researchers have connected Ron, Jim, or both Watkinses to Q, an account run by an unknown person or group of people, whose posts are the basis of the QAnon conspiracy theory.^[9] Watkins and his father were two of only a few people who could verify that posts on 8kun were from the "real" Q, which also contributed to theories that they were behind the persona.^[33]

8kun's founder, Fredrick Brennan, was quoted in a June 2020 article in The Atlantic saying, "I definitely, definitely, 100 percent believe that Q either knows Jim or Ron Watkins, or was hired by Jim or Ron Watkins."^[30] In an interview on a September 2020 episode of the podcast Reply All, Brennan explained that he believes the Q account was originally operated by someone else, but that Watkins and his father took control of the persona, most likely around December 2017.^[34] PJ Vogt of Reply All has said he discussed Brennan's theory with other journalists who write about Q, and that "some of them think it's likely; everyone agrees it's more than plausible".^[35]^

Both Watkinses have denied knowledge of Q's identity.^[29][30] In September 2020, Brennan theorized that the original "Q" was a South African 4chan poster called Paul Furber, and that once Q moved to 8chan, Ron Watkins used his login privileges as the forum's administrator to take control of the account.^[36]

A verified account on Parler claiming to be Watkins made several posts on November 15, 2020, appearing to confirm theories that his father was Q.^[37] It was later determined that security researcher Aubrey Cottle had taken advantage of Parler security flaws to change the name of an already-verified Parler account, giving it the appearance of belonging to and having been verified as Watkins.^[38]This incident led to a feud between Watkins and Parler investor Dan Bongino, with Watkins publicly criticizing Parler's security on Twitter and describing the service as "compromised". Bongino responded by tweeting insults at Watkins.^[39][40]

Watkins and his father were interviewed over several years for Cullen Hoback's six-part HBO docuseries about QAnon and the identity of Q, titled Q: Into the Storm. In the final episode of the series, Watkins said in an interview, "It was basically three years of intelligence training, teaching normies how to do intelligence work. It was basically what I was doing anonymously before, but never as Q." Watkins then smiled and corrected himself, saying "Never as Q. I promise. Because I am not Q, and I never was".^[41] Hoback viewed this as an inadvertent admission from Watkins, and concluded from this interview and his other research that Ron Watkins is Q.^[42][43][44]

On February 19, 2022, The New York Times reported that linguistic analysis of the Q posts by two forensic linguistic teams indicated that Paul Furber was the main author of the initial Q posts, and Ron Watkins took over in 2018. Watkins again denied being Q,^[32] and published on Telegram a sonnet rebutting the claims.^[45]

Attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election[

After resigning from his 8kun position in November 2020, Watkins worked to build his reputation among those attempting to overturn the results of the presidential election.^[3] He spread conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, the creators of some voting machines used in the election. He posted videos on Twitter of a Dominion employee using one of the machines, falsely stating that the employee was pictured tampering with election results. The employee received death threats as a result, and a noose was found hanging outside his home.^[3][46]

Watkins was named as an expert witness in a lawsuit filed by Sidney Powell, a lawyer and conspiracy theorist also involved in challenging the election results.^[3] In his affidavit, he claimed that based on his reading of the online user guide for the Dominion software, it is "within the realm of possibility" for a poll worker to manipulate votes. According to The Washington Post, Watkins described himself in the affidavit as "an information security expert with nine years of experience as a 'network and information defense analyst' and security engineer", and did not mention that his experience mostly came from his work with 8kun.^[7]

Watkins was interviewed multiple times about Dominion on the pro-Trump One America News Network (OANN), which introduced him as a "large system technical analyst".^[5] His comments on electoral fraud were also reported by other right-wing outlets, including The Gateway Pundit.^[4]

Watkins earned a large following on Twitter following the election, where he used the name "CodeMonkeyZ".^[3][37] In the month of November he nearly doubled his follower count to 400,000, and by early January had more than 500,000 followers.^[3] Trump had retweeted Watkins five times between Election Day and January 6, 2021, and Foreign Policy described Watkins as "an integral part of Trump's post-election messaging".^[4]

On the night of January 5, 2021, the day before the U.S. Capitol attack, Watkins told his father and journalist Cullen Hoback that he was about to "make a claim, it's going to shatter some institutions". On Twitter, Watkins announced plans to "drop" information he called "The Mother of All [truth] Bombs". According to Hoback, Watkins claimed to have received a back-channel information from the White House.^[47]In the early hours of January 6, Watkins posted a tweet accusing Vice President Mike Pence of orchestrating a coup. He also linked to a blog post which called for "the immediate arrest of [Pence], for treason."^[47][48]

On January 8, Twitter cracked down on accounts that were "solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content". Watkins's account was among the accounts Twitter permanently suspended, as were the accounts belonging to Sidney Powell and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.^[49][50]

Subsequent endeavors[

Amid the Maricopa county election audit, Watkins falsely alleged that 200,000 Trump votes went uncounted.^[51][52]

In October 2021, Watkins appeared at a conference called For God & Country: Patriot Double Down in Las Vegas, where he called himself a "digital Rosa Parks", comparing his bans from mainstream social media to Parks' bus arrest.^[53]

Bid for Congress[

Main article: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Arizona § District 2

In October 2021, Watkins filed a statement of interest with the Arizona Secretary of State to run for the United States House of Representatives in Arizona's 1st congressional district as a Republican.^[54] He officially announced his run for Congress with a video in which he called Democratic incumbent Tom O'Halleran the "dirtiest Democrat in the D.C. swamp". And is now running for the 2nd district ^[55]

Watkins campaigned mostly through Telegram;he hired conspiracy theorist podcaster Tony Teora as a campaign manager^[56] and associated with a local sovereign citizen activist. In January 2022, he appeared at a school board meeting in Scottsdale, where he accused "communist creeps" in school boards of indoctrinating children with "transexual propaganda" and critical race theory and of taking away parental rights by "teaching our children that they can be vaccinated without parental consent".^[57]

In February 2022, it was reported that Watkins' campaign had raised just above $33,000, some of which was in the form of a loan from his father. Watkins also entered into polemics with Arizona senator Wendy Rogers, whom he accused of botching the Maricopa County election audit. Rogers responded by calling Watkins a "weirdo" and mocking his fundraising efforts. She later said she would enact a "ceasefire" with Watkins.^[58]

Personal life[

After high school, Watkins moved to China.^[2] Watkins lived with his father in Manila in the Philippines in the 2010s.^[19][8] As of January 2021, Watkins was living in Japan;^[50] in October 2021 he moved to Arizona.^[54] In a 2022 speech he gave at Prescott, Arizona, Watkins mentioned that he had a 5-year-old daughter and was divorced.^[59]

References...

...

===

Ron Watkins - Wikipedia

Ronald Watkins (born April 18, 1987) is an American conspiracy theorist and site administrator of the imageboard website 8kun (formerly known as 8chan).

Activities · ‎8kun · ‎Role in QAnon · ‎Attempts to overturn the 2020...

### Jim Watkins (businessman) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Jim_Watkins_(busines...

James Arthur Watkins (born November 1963) is an American businessman, QAnon conspiracy theorist and the operator of the imageboard website 8chan and ...

Ron Watkins hopes to move from QAnon to Congress. And he ...

https://www.azmirror.com › 2021/10/21 › ron-watkins-...

Oct 21, 2021 — Five days before Ron Watkins, the notorious MAGA conspiracy theorist who helped spread the violent far-right QAnon conspiracy, posted a ...

### Ron Watkins files an ethics complaint against Wendy Rogers ...

https://www.azmirror.com › 2022/06/13 › ron-watkins-...

Jun 13, 2022 — Ron Watkins, the man purported to be an architect of the QAnon conspiracy theory, filed an ethics complaint against Republican state Sen.

---

ron watkins 8chan Q

Endangering Mike Pence

Right-wing media and social media users spread conspiracy theories about the Trump rally shooting

Early life:

Activities[

8kun[

Role in QAnon[

Attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election[

Subsequent endeavors[

Bid for Congress[

Personal life[

References...

Ron Watkins - Wikipedia

Ron Watkins hopes to move from QAnon to Congress. And he ...

QAnon candidate Ron Watkins finished dead last in his ...

Suspected QAnon Creator Ron Watkins Loses Spectacularly ...

Who Is Ron Watkins, the QAnon Celebrity Running for ...

QAnon promoter Ron Watkins is running for Congress in Arizona

Ron Watkins - Ballotpedia

QAnon's 'Q' re-emerges on far-right message board after two ...