sather, j

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QAnon influencers baselessly suggest newly released Epstein emails show Trump was an “informant” against Epstein

Published 11/14/25

Multiple online influencers affiliated with the QAnon conspiracy theory — which falsely asserts that a secret satanic pedophile cabal that included Jeffrey Epstein runs the world — are baselessly suggesting that newly released emails from Epstein that reference President Donald Trump are actually evidence that Trump was an “informant” who worked to take down the convicted sex trafficker.

## House members release emails from Epstein mentioning Trump, as he and his allies try to prevent the release of more Epstein files

- Emails from Epstein released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee seem to allege Trump knew about Epstein's conduct. Epstein wrote in the emails that Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s alleged victims. Epstein also wrote in the emails that Trump “knew about the girls,” that “that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” and that Trump was “dangerous.” The New York Times, [11/12/25; NBC News, 11/12/25; CNN, 11/12/25; USA Today, 11/13/25]

- The House is poised to vote next week on releasing files related to Epstein, despite Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) attempts to prevent it. After resistance from House Republican leaders to a vote on their bill to release the Epstein files, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a discharge petition in July to force a vote. On November 12, the petition got the final signature required to force a vote after Trump reportedly “made last-ditch moves to block action,” including summoning Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to a meeting in the White House Situation Room. PBS News, [11/13/25; CNN, 11/12/25; The New York Times, 11/12/25]

- Johnson previously alleged without evidence that Trump was an FBI informant against Epstein, before later backtracking. In September, Johnson responded to Trump’s claim about a “Democrat Epstein Hoax” and said that the president was “referring to … the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” and in fact Trump “was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.” According to Rolling Stone, “Johnson’s ‘informant’ claim … sparked widespread confusion within the ranks of Trump’s government, with several senior officials blindsided or just completely perplexed by what the Trump-aligned House speaker could have possibly meant,” with “some officials still unsure about whether Johnson was citing some explosive, unheard-of insider information, or if he misspoke or was freelancing extemporaneously.” Days later, Johnson backtracked, saying that he had been referring to “what the (Epstein) victims’ attorney said” and that he didn't know if he “used the right terminology, but that’s common knowledge, and everybody knows that.” Rolling Stone, [9/6/25; CNN, 9/8/25]
## The QAnon community has tried to rationalize Trump opposing the Epstein files’ release

- After Trump dismissed the Epstein filings in July, many in the QAnon community tried to find a way to give Trump a pass. Following Axios’ July 6 reporting of an administration memo that concluded that there is “no evidence” Epstein “kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered,” Trump called the focus on Epstein “foolish” and a “hoax.” In response, influencers affiliated with QAnon speculated that there is “more to the story” and that Trump’s actions are actually part of an elaborate and “brilliant” plot he is enacting against the supposed pedophile cabal. A smaller group of QAnon supporters, however, criticized Trump for his comments about Epstein. Media Matters, [7/21/25]

- By contrast, many in right-wing media have been critical of Trump and his administration’s handling of the Epstein case. Figures have accused the administration of a “cover-up” and of “utterly mismanag[ing]” the case, and they claimed Trump was “massively misreading his base” on the issue. Media Matters, [7/9/25]

## In response to newly released Epstein emails, online influencers affiliated with the QAnon movement suggest the emails make “Trump definitely sound like an asset, an FBI informant”

- Podcast host Zak Paine, who The New York Times reported “pushes the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory,” claimed the emails suggested “it’s likely” that “Donald Trump was the whistleblower that was responsible for Jeffrey Epstein getting wrapped up in the case in the first place.” Paine also claimed, without evidence, that the emails referred to how Trump supposedly “went to the police and the FBI about this entire thing,” and pointed to Johnson’s “informant” remarks in September as additional evidence. The New York Times, [4/27/21; RedPill78, 11/12/25]

- Podcaster Brian Lupo wrote that the new email release “supports that theory” that “Trump has been an informant against Epstein.” Lupo, also known online as “CannCon,” has posted about “Q,” QAnon’s central figure, as well as the QAnon slogan. Media Matters, [6/14/23; Twitter/X, accessed 6/14/23, 2/23/23, 11/12/25]

- Podcaster “Burning Bright,” who’s written that “I am and have been a Q follower,” said “I totally agree” with Lupo that “in the context of the emails themselves,” Trump looks like “an informant.” Bright also invoked Q posts (called “drops”) as part of his claim. Twitter/X, accessed [11/13/25, 5/16/25; Badlands Media, Devolution Power Hour, 11/12/25]

- Podcaster Jon Herold claimed that one of the emails “makes Trump definitely sound like an asset, an FBI informant.” Herold, who is also known online as “Patel Patriot,” has written that the Q posts “are legit.” Media Matters, [7/22/25; Twitter/X, 11/26/24; Badlands Media, Devolution Power Hour, 11/12/25]

- Jordan Sather, who The Daily Beast reported is a “prominent QAnon promoter,” claimed that the emails showed “Epstein & his friends ... catching wind that Trump was likely an informant gathering dirt on them.” The Daily Beast, [1/28/20; Telegram, 11/12/25]

- Pepe Lives Matter, who a BBC reporter has reported is a “major QAnon influencer,” wrote that the “emails may indicate what weve been saying that trump was an informant against epstein.” Twitter/X, [1/7/21; Telegram, 11/12/25]

- Jacob Creech, a figure known online as “Clandestine” who has “repeatedly posted in support of QAnon,” wrote that the emails show “Trump was Epstein’s #1 enemy.” Creech wrote, “Observe the timeline: Epstein in 2017: ‘Trump is dangerous.’ 2019: Trump’s DOJ indicts/arrests Epstein and seizes his island. Epstein was right to fear Trump, because Epstein knew Trump helped the victims seek justice in FL in 2006. Trump was Epstein’s #1 enemy.” Vice, [4/12/22; Twitter/X, 11/13/25]

- “The SCIF,” a social media account which has written that “if it wasn’t for Q, most people would still have no clue how bad the child trafficking problem really is,” claimed Trump “exposed and took down Epstein.” The SCIF wrote that the released emails were “another attempt to slander Trump instead of going after the real monsters of child trafficking and abuse” by “cherry picking emails.” The account also claimed this was done “because Trump went after all of them, exposed and took down Epstein, all of their money laundering operations using YOUR taxpayer dollars, and the elites child trafficking blackmail rings.” Twitter/X, [10/25/24, 11/12/25]

mma

### QAnon world roiled by Trump opposing releasing the Epstein files

07/21/25 2:39 PM EDT

### Right-wing media are flailing in response to Trump's DOJ memo about Jeffrey Epstein

07/09/25 10:46 AM EDT

### New Epstein emails mentioning Trump don't appear to interest Fox News

11/12/25

---

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/22/inside-fringe-internet-coronavirus-bubble-142960

for nearly two months, President Donald Trump downplayed the looming coronavirus threat before finally acknowledging the crisis at hand. But by the time the president shifted hisstance, many of his supporters on the fringes of the internet had already adopted—and amplified—his initial skepticism, framing the pandemic as just another flu bug or a liberal media hoax.

Now that the virus has circled the globe, killing thousands of people and crashing the stock market, what are these people, who live off a steady diet of perceived grievances and conspiracy theories, thinking? Are they, like Sean Hannity and other prominent Fox News hosts, no longer dismissing the novel virus as an overblown, politicized event, or are they steadfast in their denial—and even coming up with more fanciful theories as time goes on?

Given the dire situation, it seems worth knowing if the severity of the pandemic finally has penetrated the bubble of the most extreme coronavirus scoffers; if these people and their followers are ignoring safety measures because they believe the pandemic is a false flag to take away their guns or a Deep State plot to take down Trump, then they risk contributing to the disease’s spread. So, this past week, I created a faux Twitter account and set about building my own information bubble. My objective: Inhabit the world of far-right figures and conspiracy fanatics, survey the landscape and see where it leads me. I wanted to not just look into, but live in, the information universe seemingly giving comfort to people who want to believe this is all just an overreaction.

Initially, my guiding principle for choosing which accounts to follow was they had to have expressed skepticism about the seriousness of the virus and the need for an all-out response. I started by following a few highly trafficked personalities that I was already familiar with, such as pro-Trump acolytes Bill Mitchell and Sidney Powell, as well as Jordan Sather, a “professional shit stirrer” (as Rolling Stone put it) in the bizarre QAnon conspiracy movement, which holds that Trump is doing battle with nefarious Deep State forces.

Every time I punched in a new name, Twitter helpfully recommended like-minded souls to follow. I was served up names both less familiar (like a former CIA officer on a “mission to expose the Deep State/Shadow Government”) and very familiar (hello, LauraIngraham and Sebastian Gorka). Some of them occupied very different parts of the info-verse from each other, but they seemed united in the urge to defend the president and his handling of the crisis. I stopped adding to my bubble when it hit close to 70 accounts.

Over the week, I could see a clear line emerging between people who live within the conservative landscape broadly speaking—like Ingraham and Mike Huckabee, who can’t resist trolling liberals, but really aren’t questioning the risks of COVID at this point—and the people who’ve left the mainstream world behind for good. The former are looking for ways to pick holes in mainstream-media consensus and criticisms of the president, but they’re still reality-based. With the others, though, it’s impossible to imagine what combination of circumstances might pull them back to reality.

After spending long stretches in this fevered silo, I’m sorry to report that even a devastating pandemic can’t dent the human appetite for conspiracy ideation.Given the anxious, uncertain times we find ourselves in today, perhaps this is not surprising. Scholars say that people who feel a lack of control in their lives sometimes turn to conspiracies to help make sense of random, unfathomable events. “When disasters and tragedies take place, conspiracy theories may be more appealing—or less terrifying—than the reality of what has taken place,” Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan explained in an email.

That said, I was surprised to learn that some of the most notorious conspiracy promoters, likeInfowars’ Alex Jones, did not deny the severity and spread of coronavirus. (He is banned from Twitter, but people I followed managed to lead me to his website, where I could watch his streaming broadcast.) To be clear, Jones, who is notorious for erroneously suggesting that numerous mass shootings were staged, has not changed his ways; he is still spewing ridiculous conspiracies about the pandemic’s origins and impact.

Jones’ acknowledgement that the virus is more serious than an ordinary flu bug stands in contrast to some other far-right figures and QAnon promoters in my bubble who furiously argued otherwise—even after Trump’s own reality check. This divergence highlighted something else that struck me: just how many conspiracy narratives are being floated in response to the pandemic, as if they’re being tested to see which ones stick.

***

It was on Tuesday, March 17, hours after a White House press conference about the virus, that I launched my faux Twitter account. One of the first retweets that flashed across my laptop screen was from a libertarian activist (@erasethestate),who misleadinglycompared flu and coronavirus statistics, something Trump had previously done numerous times. But this was also the same day that the president shed his cavalier approach to the pandemic. Would coronavirus minimizers like @erasethestate take their cue from Trump and abandon that disingenuous tack?

Hardly. Bill Mitchell, a vocal Trump supporter with 547,000 followers, showed up often in my feed to bemoan thecoronavirus “fearporn.” He was emblematic of many in the far-right sphere of my bubble who faulted the media for “hyping” the pandemic. Mitchell, like @erasethestate, also frequently conflated the high number of flu deaths and hospitalizations with those for coronavirus—failing to mention that the latter is believed by medical authorities to be more contagious and lethal. It will be interesting to see when or if Mitchell ever revisits his obstinate stance, illustrated vividly in this tweet:

I don't care if I'm the last pundit on Earth saying the wild over-reaction to #COVID19 is bullsh*t, it's bullsh*t.

100%, pure grade A, solid gold bullsh*t.

History will agree with me.

2,356

9:34 AM - Mar 18, 2020

not everyone in my feed was as adamant as Mitchell. For example, Sara Carter, a Fox News contributor Twitter suggested to me, wanted to have it both ways on her podcast. “I don’t know if it’s just me,” she started out saying in a recent episode. “I almost feel like there’s this strange overreaction.” Then in the next breath, she noted, “Italy is really suffering,” before equivocating again: “We are overreacting, maybe for good reason, but there’s also this issue where it has been politicized.”

Carter’s fuzziness made it hard to understand where she stood. But to some extent, it’s understandable if some of her listeners and followers feel confused about what to think. If you’re obsessively following the outbreak news, watching the panic among real-world doctors, the anxiety of people watching their jobs and 401(k)s vanish, senior citizens and even 30-somethings struggling for life on ventilators, it can be infuriating to read tweet after tweet intimating that this isn’t a big deal at all. But if you haven’t been hit by the disease yet and don’t want to stay inside for the sake of people you’ve never met, there’s a measure of relief in occupying a world in which the situation is under control and the response has gone too far.

While both MAGA types and QAnon enthusiasts in my bubble were suspicious about the pandemic and its root cause, they expressed different reasons. Mitchell intimated that the virus’ spread was a form of bioterrorism by China. Some in the QAnon crowd, seeing the rush to develop a vaccine to fight the virus, fingered profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies as the culprits. While he loathes Big Pharma, Jordan Sather blamed other black hats closer to home after seeing this tweet from Trump:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

The world is at war with a hidden enemy. WE WILL WIN!

564K

12:31 PM - Mar 17, 2020]

most people likely understood that Trump was referring to a microscopic pathogen as the “hidden enemy.” But Sather the real meaning on his YouTube show. “What could he mean?” Sather asked with a grin, as he stroked his chin. “I think you know exactly what he means. He’s talking about the Deep State cabal infecting our planet right now—quite obviously.” The QAnon movement—which spun off the deranged Pizzagate episode during the 2016 election—is obsessed with rooting out supposed Deep State actors and A-list pedophiles, who according to QAnon belief, control Hollywood and the real levers of government power.

When I was in my bubble, an anonymous, QAnon adherent alleged on Facebook that Oprah Winfrey was arrested for running a child sex ring. It was preposterous and easily debunked, but the rumor circulated so widely on the internet that Winfrey felt compelled to respond on Twitter. Even crazier, according to several news reports, the Facebook post alleged that other celebrities, such as Tom Hanks, had also been arrested, but that a covert intelligence operation triggered the coronavirus epidemic to distract the world from bringing them and a Satanic cabal to justice.

Toward the end of my time in the bubble, a retweet flashed across my laptop screen that contained a screen grab of something Alex Jones had said on his Infowars show. Jones helms a lucrative multi-media empire that has trafficked in outlandish conspiracies for two decades; he has been successfully sued by parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims for suggesting that the tragic event didn’t actually happen. After one of my followers tweeted a blurb from his show, I clicked on Jones’ livestream just as he was beginning of one of his trademark stream-of-consciousness monologues.

“The world is going into martial law,” he says in his raspy voice, playing off the travel restrictions that have been enacted to quell the pandemic. “Criminals, armed robbers, rapists, they are all being let out of jail by the tens of thousands.” Every word of this is false, of course, as is what he says a few minutes later: “If your neighbors sees you cough, you’re being taken away for six weeks. … This is how the West dies. This is how America dies, this is how it all unfolds.”

No wonder Jones isn’t denying the severity of the coronavirus; he’s using it to frighten his listeners witless—to his own advantage.

Wearing a blazer and sitting behind his faux TV studio in Austin, Texas, Jones broke off from his rants every 10 minutes or so to hawk his line of dietary supplements and other products. He sells everything from toothpaste and coffee (called “Wake Up America”) to sleeping aids (“Knock-out”). I tried to listen to two of his shows on consecutive days, but I couldn’t get very far in, especially after I heard him plug his supplements as a life and death necessity for people to survive the pandemic. “Folks, they want to train you to sit there and die in your house,” he said. “Get the boost you and your family need. A lot of stuff is selling out, a lot of stuff coming in. We have the supplements now. You better get your orders in. Do not wait.”

Agitated by his shamelessness, I slammed my laptop shut and reflected on the upside-down world I had created for myself on Twitter and YouTube. I felt unsettled by the realization that not even a monumental humanitarian crisis can keep some charlatans from exploiting people’s fears for profit.

If you want to hear that the virus is no big deal, maybe even fake, you don’t have to build your own bubble. Here’s your shortcut: At the moderate end, among the media-skeptic pro-Trump crowd, the virus is real and it’s scary, but so are liberal overreach, open borders, government spending, breathless public-health fearmongering and criticism of Trump. At the extreme end, let’s call it Full QAnon, the outbreak is engineered by Chinese scientists, Big Pharma or criminal celebrities, and may or may not be real.

This weekend, I peeked back at my Twitter bubble one last time to see if events on the ground had changed any of the hardened minds I’d been following for days. But everyone seemed ensconced in their altered or alternate realities. There was not a dent in the cocoon—for now

https://www.mediamatters.org/trump-impeachment-inquiry/far-right-trump-defenders-blast-russia-aligned-ukrainian-lawmakers

as testimony was underway during the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, far-right defenders of the president rapidly spread false and unsubstantiated information in an attempt to bolster a Republican-backed conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden and Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that previously had Biden on its board of directors.

On November 20, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified before the House Intelligence Committee and provided further support for the central premise of the impeachment inquiry. Sondland confirmed that he believed Trump directed an effort to hold up security assistance to Ukraine unless the country announced an investigation into his political adversaries. Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others close to the president have repeatedly pushed the evidence-free claim that, as vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor because that prosecutor was investigating Burisma, where his son worked at the time. (In fact, the prosecutor in question was corrupt, and no Burisma investigation was being carried out at the time when Biden was tasked with advancing the broadly held Western foreign policy goal of pressuring Ukraine to fire the prosecutor.)

While the hearing was underway, conspiracy theory website ZeroHedge published an article claiming that Burisma founder Nikolai Zlochevsky had been indicted by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, and that evidence indicated that Hunter Biden and other Burisma board members had received money embezzled by Burisma from Ukrainian citizens.NBC News reported that the claims in the ZeroHedge article were “incorrect,” as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky has not been indicted, but that “didn’t stop allies of President Donald Trump from widely disseminating the false account of an indictment, seizing on some truthful elements while wildly extrapolating others.” According to a report from Reuters, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, did announce on November 20 an escalation into his investigation of Zlochevsky to include suspicion of embezzlement, but he “did not provide evidence or details” or mention Biden. Reuters added that the investigation is “is effectively on hold” because “the Ukrainian authorities cannot determine Zlochevsky’s whereabouts.”

According to NBC News, the claim that Burisma’s founder had been indicted was shared by tens of thousands of users on Twitter during the first hour after it was published. Social media analysis tool CrowdTangle showed that by the morning of November 21, the ZeroHedge story had been shared on Facebook pages with a total of nearly 5.5 million followers. The story also began to trend on Reddit’s toxic “r/The_Donald” subreddit. In particular, the story was initially popularized on Twitter by an account purporting to be a news organization, @BreakingNLive, that was suspended from the platform later in the day.

The false story reached Trump’s inner circle on Twitter, with Donald Trump Jr. liking a tweet promoting the ZeroHedge article sent by Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. (Posobiec appears to have subsequently deleted the tweet.) On YouTube, the indictment claim is being promoted by Red Pill News, a channel verified by YouTube that has 176,000 subscribers, and a channel belonging to far-right congressional candidate Joey Saladino, which has 252,000 subscribers.

Beyond Posobiec, the ZeroHedge claims were pushed on social media by other prominent far-right conspiracy theorists including Jerome Corsi, Bill Mitchell, and cartoonist Ben Garrison. Proponents of the far-right pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory were also behind the social media push. As NBC News reported, “One minute before the ZeroHedge article was published, the anonymous account that inspired the QAnon conspiracy theory — generally known as 'Q' — linked to the same” article that formed the basis of the claims promoted at ZeroHedge. Major QAnon accounts, including @Jordan_Sather_ and @EyesOnQ subsequently promoted the ZeroHedge article. NBC’s Ben Collins reported that “Q” later made a post complaining about the suspension of @BreakingNLive.

Beyond social media, the claims first popularized by ZeroHedge were also featured on disreputable right-wing conspiracy theory websites Infowars and The Gateway Pundit as well as smaller such platforms including The Federalist Papers, WayneDupree.com, [your]News, The Daily Coin, and MAGA Daily Report. (*Hannity* and Fox “straight news” program *Fox News @ Night* later covered the Reuters report as well, while featuring pictures and a discussion of Hunter Biden.)

The source of ZeroHedge’s story appears to be an article from Interfax-Ukraine that repeated unsubstantiated claims about illegal payments from Burisma to Biden made by Ukrainian Members of ParliamentAndriy Derkach and Oleksandr Dubinsky at a press conference they held at the news agency, where they did not offer evidence to back their claims. Interfax-Ukraine’s parent company is a Russian business, Interfax, that was recently praised by Vladmir Putin as making “a major contribution to strengthening the authority and prestige of journalism.” Derkach’s claim about the payments isn’t new. As Time reported, in recent months Derkach has repeatedly made public statements alleging improper payments from Burisma to Biden. Those statements failed to catch on in the way the statements made at the press conference on Wednesday did. Other Ukrainian lawmakers have accused Derkach -- who does not belong to a political party and, according to Time, “studied in the early 1990s at Russia’s top intelligence academy” -- of advancing the interests of Russia, which is currently waging a war against Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post, Derkach has made separate accusations about Biden receiving improper payments in an offshore account while providing “no evidence to support these accusations.” According to Ukraine experts interviewed by NBC News, Derkach and Dubinsky are “not credible” and likely held the press conference to boost Trump.

VirtualShield, a company that sells virtual private network (VPN) software, is being promoted most prominently by YouTube creators who produce content that features conspiracy theories and far-right political commentary, in addition to programming hosted by at least one open white nationalist.

As a 2017 blog post pointed out, the ownership of VirtualShield is virtually unknown. The business was established using a method that allowed the founders to conceal their ownership and VirtualShield’s listed business location is the office of a company that sells businesses a virtual office address for $45.

VirtualShield runs an ambassador program in which websites and creators can make referral bonuses for directing their fans to VirtualShield products.

[img]

(Screenshot / VirtualShield)

However, the use of conspiracy theory rhetoric in its own in-house advertising suggests that VirtualShield may be making a direct effort to target right-wing audiences whose members are convinced that they are being surveilled because of their political beliefs.

One advertisement, featured on VirtualShield’s website, warns viewers about “the men in black suits”who are said to use the internet to orchestrate the spread of political propaganda and the “controlling of your mind”—rhetoric similar to that spread by Alex Jones and his Infowars media operation. To help fuel their paranoid narrative, they rely on legitimate concerns about data collection by big tech platforms, and the possibility of that data being hacked. But then they add an even more ominous, if mysterious, note.

“I guarantee you have a 100 percent chance that someone, a government agency, internet service provider, or an online hacker, is not only watching what you watch—they’re recording what you watch and they’re selling that information to people who pummel you with target-specific ads. And that’s not the half of it,” a narrator reads during one ad posted on VirtualShield’s YouTube channel.

[vid?]

Some of the YouTube creators advertising VirtualShield and producing far-right content and right-wing conspiracy theory content include:

Conspiracy Theorists

Jordan Sather, a conspiracy theorist YouTuber who has dedicated his channel in recent months to the byzantine “QAnon” conspiracy theory and on Comedy Central’s “The Jim Jefferies Show” last year to vouch for the QAnon conspiracy theory;
Paul Begley, a right-wing pastor who declared his perceived foes to be part of a demonic Illuminati secret society,warned that the “deep state” seeks to put Christians in internment camps, and claimed that Melania Trump ordered the White House undergo an exorcism;
Lisa Haven, a conspiracy theorist who gives her viewers warnings about government mind-control programs and plots to exterminate human life, in addition to theories about the “deep state”;
Rex Bear’s Leak Project, which shares, among other things, esoteric theories about chemtrails, the Illuminati, sasquatch sightings, and aliens.

Far-Right Creators

Andy “Warski” Pires, a right-wing reactionary YouTube creator who piloted a “YouTube bloodsports”series last year that acted as a platform for far-right and white nationalist pundits;
James Allsup, a white nationalist YouTube pundit who flaunts his involvement in the white nationalist groupIdentity Evropaand held an elected position in his local GOP before he was ousted from that post;
Lauren Southern, a right-wing pundit and former Rebel Media star who has produced white nationalist agitprop and praised a whites-only town in South Africa for its low crime rate;
Brooks Heatherly, a.k.a. “NoBullshit,” a YouTube creator who upholds “race realism,” defended the alt-right Unite the Right rally against criticism, and has expressed anti-Semitic sentiments on numerous occasions.

We attempted to reach VirtualShield for this article but did not receive a response. A customer service representative directed us to the company’s support email address. We emailed the support form, received confirmation that our message had been received, and received no further contact.

Tags: Andy Warski James Allsup Jordan Sather Lauren Southern Lisa Haven Paul Begley Rex Bear conspiracy theories tech companies YouTube

rww

UPDATE (11/13/18): Since the publication of this article, the American Priority conference event page has been modified. The QAnon “expert” panel mentioned in this article has been delisted and some listed speakers who frequently spread the conspiracy theory are no longer listed as conference speakers. Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth no longer appears in the lineup; American Priority conference’s Alex Phillips tells Right Wing Watch that Hegseth withdrew due to an unexpected family obligation.

Heritage Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow Stephen Moore and Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth are scheduled to appear at a conference in Washington, D.C., next month where a panel of believers in the “QAnon” conspiracy theory plan to present. Moore served as an economic adviser to President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The conference was announced earlier this year as an alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which Ali Alexander (also known as “Ali Akbar”), one of the original American Priority conference organizers, said neglected the Trump base, despite a CPAC speaker roster that has included administration officials (including the president himself).

Fox News and Heritage Foundation have not answered Right Wing Watch’s requests for comment.

The current agenda page for the American Priority Conference lists as one of its “conference topics” the “QAnon” conspiracy theory, which surmises that President Donald Trump has ordered someone (or a group of people) with top-level federal security clearance to gradually reveal a secret collaboration between Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller to take down a satanic pedophile ring said to span the globe, and allegedly involves top Democratic leaders. Believers of the conspiracy theory, which revolves around an anonymous figure known only as “Q,” who shares via cryptic riddles posted to an image board notorious for child pornography, believe that Trump will eventually subject such top Democrats as Hillary Clinton to military tribunals.

The American Priority event promises “an open panel discussion from Q Experts.” The website does not contain any additional information about the planned panel. Speakers listed on the conference lineup include YouTube personality Jordan Sather, a prominent producer of QAnon content on YouTube.

Sather, who was on Comedy Central as a QAnon conspiracy theorist, uploads content perpetuating the conspiracy theory almost every single day online, where he has nearly 160,000 subscribers on YouTube. Just this morning, Sather [posted](mailto:%3cblockquote%20class=%22twitter-tweet%22%20data-partner=%22tweetdeck%22%3e%3cp%20lang=%22in%22%20dir=%22ltr%22%3eStop%20it.%20Staaahp.%20%3ca%20href=%22https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22%3e%23QAnon%3c/a%3e%20%3ca%20href=%22https://t.co/TNCkjEdeqw%22%3epic.twitter.com/TNCkjEdeqw%3c/a%3e%3c/p%3e—%20Jordan%20Sather%20%28@Jordan_Sather%29%20%3ca%20href=%22https://twitter.com/Jordan_Sather/status/1060562948479868929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22%3eNovember%208,%202018%3c/a%3e%3c/blockquote%3e) an image to Twitter suggesting that news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had been hospitalized with fractured ribs was part of the QAnon conspiracy theory.[grafic]

Dustin Nemos, another QAnon content producer, is also slated to speak at the conference. Another speaker is Kari Baxter Donovan, who once promoted an apparently Q-themed article at Populist Media, which appears to have been deleted, tweeting its link with the tagline, “Q is for everyone” and the hashtag “#QAnon” hashtag, which she has also used to promote content as recently as November 3.

Another speaker slated for the conference is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who posted about QAnon on Facebook as recently as November 5. DeAnna Lorraine, who is also appearing at the conference, has tweeted about QAnon, too.

The event also features breakout sessions with other pro-Trump conspiracy theorists including Matt Couch, who’s responsible for spreading lies about the murder of former DNC staffer Seth Rich, and Laura Loomer.

The conference is also scheduled to feature presenters known to have had friendly interactions with figures within the white supremacist “alt-right” movement, including,, and Milo Yiannopoulous.

Deputy Director of the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA Chris Chmielenski is also slated to speak at the American Priority conference.

Right now, the conference shows only two full sponsors: An entity called American Grassroots Council, Inc., which appears to have only a shell website, and Americans For The Trump Agenda, a project of the United States Public Policy Council, Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit whose principal officer is listed as Emy Delgaudio, an Amway distributor. (Amway is the pyramid-style company founded by Richard DeVos, the late father-in-law of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.)

This article has been updated for clarity, with a link added to comments by a conference organizer, Ali Alexander, regarding the need for a conference alternative to CPAC. Alex Phillips, who told Right Wing Watch that he is now the “sole owner and organizer” of the American Priority conference, said that Alexander left the project in August.

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