'Mind-bogglingly irresponsible': meet the
Republican donors helping QAnon reach Congress
Marjorie Taylor Greene received donations from groups
tied to Donald Trump’s chief of staff and several party mega-donors, filings
show
Julia
Carrie Wong in San Francisco
@juliacarriew Email
Mon 24 Aug
2020 11.00 BSTLast modified on Mon 24 Aug 2020 11.03 BST
Republican
party leaders linked to the White House helped boost the primary campaign of a
QAnon supporter with a history of making racist and bigoted statements,
campaign finance filings show.
Marjorie
Taylor Greene’s victory in the 11 August primary runoff for Georgia’s 14th
Congressional district all but assures that a backer of the baseless and
antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theory will be elected to Congress in November.
Her primary opponent, John Cowan, ran as a pro-Trump, pro-life, and pro-gun
conservative.
The filings
reveal donations from:
groups
connected to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his wife,
the
chairman of the board of prominent conservative think tank the Heritage
Foundation,
the
attorney who represented “Covington Kid” Nicholas Sandmann in defamation suits
against the Washington Post and CNN,
and
multiple Republican mega-donors.
Meadows was
given the opportunity to disavow or denounce QAnon in multiple television
interviews on Sunday, but he demurred, claiming not to know what it was.
“Getting
involved in a primary on behalf of an absolutely insane, conspiracy-minded,
explicitly racist candidate in a seat that is reliably conservative is
mind-bogglingly irresponsible,” said Tim Miller, a former spokesman for the
Republican National Committee who is now political director for Republican
Voters Against Trump.
“This is
how you signal to the Trump base, ‘We are with you. We are going to go along
with the most radical, conspiratorial segment of the Trump base to show that
you can trust us, that we’re not going to get ‘cucked’ by the media.’”
Greene has
garnered significant media attention for her extraordinary support for QAnon, a
baseless conspiracy theory rooted in antisemitic tropes whose followers believe
that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against a cabal of Democrats,
celebrities and billionaires engaged in pedophilia, child trafficking, and even
cannibalism. The movement has repeatedly inspired vigilante violence, and has
been identified by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorism threat.
In videos
unearthed by Politico, Greene has argued that Muslims should not be allowed to
serve in the US government, compared Black Lives Matter activists to neo-Nazis
and the Ku Klux Klan, described the election of Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and
Rashida Tlaib as “an Islamic invasion”, and promoted antisemitic conspiracy
theories about the billionaire financier and Holocaust survivor George Soros.
The
Republican Jewish Coalition cited those videos, as well as her refusal to
apologize for posing for a photograph with a “long-time white supremacist
leader” in its decision to pick sides in a Republican primary and endorse
Cowan.
As a
blogger for a now-defunct website, Greene promoted QAnon as well as other
fringe conspiracy theories, according to NBC News. Archives of the website show
that she promoted conspiracy theories about a “Clinton Kill List”, about the
2017 gun massacre in Las Vegas, and about the murder of a young Democratic
party staffer.
Madihha
Ahussain, Muslim Advocates’ special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry, denounced
the “vile, false, violence-inciting rhetoric against Muslims” from Greene in a
statement that also addressed anti-Muslim extremist Laura Loomer’s Republican
primary victory. “A failure to disavow this anti-Muslim hate is an endorsement
of it,” she added.
Some
high-profile Republican leaders spoke out against Greene after Politico
unearthed the videos of her making racist statements, and the political action
committee (Pac) associated with Koch Industries, KochPac, requested a refund of
an earlier donation. But campaign finance filings reveal that her campaign
continued to be backed by major Republican donors and influential political
leaders.
The Your
Voice Counts Pac affiliated with Meadows first donated $2,000 to Greene’s
campaign in March. Greene received further support from the Meadows family when
the RightWomen Pac, whose executive director is Debbie Meadows, Mark’s wife,
endorsed Greene and spent $17,500 to oppose Cowan in the runoff.
Greene also
received significant backing from the House Freedom Fund, the Pac associated
with the House Freedom Caucus, of which Meadows was a member before he was
tapped as White House chief of staff. Meadows is still featured on the House
Freedom Fund’s website. In addition to spending more than $30,000 on an
independent expenditure campaign to support Greene over Cowan, the House
Freedom Fund raised nearly $90,000 from its own donors, earmarked for Greene’s
campaign.
These
earmarked donations include $5,600 from Barb Van Andel-Gaby, the chairman of
the board of the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank.
Van Andel-Gaby is also a director of the parent company of Amway, which was
founded by her father with Richard DeVos, who was in turn the father-in-law of
US secretary of education Betsy DeVos. Van Andel-Gaby’s husband, Richard Gaby,
also donated to Greene’s campaign through the House Freedom Fund. Van
Andel-Gaby did not respond to numerous requests for comment on her support for
a candidate who supports QAnon.
Some of
Greene’s donors are a touch ironic, given the QAnon movement’s preoccupation
with baselessly accusing Democrats, Hollywood celebrities, and billionaires of
pedophilia and human trafficking.
Besides Meadows,
the House Freedom Fund is also lead by Representative Jim Jordan, who has been
dogged for years by allegations that he knew and did nothing to stop sexual
abuse of student athletes at Ohio State University when he worked there in the
1980s and 90s. Jordan has denied any knowledge of the abuse.
Greene
received $2,800 from John W Childs, the former chairman of JW Childs Associates
who stepped down after being charged with misdemeanor solicitation in an
investigation related to the suspected human trafficking sting that led to the
arrest of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Childs denied the charge at
the time and said he had retained a lawyer. Kraft pleaded not guilty to two
misdemeanor solicitation charges.
Greene also
received $2,800 from L Lin Wood, the attorney who represented British cave
explorer Vernon Unsworth in his unsuccessful defamation suit against Elon Musk
after Musk baselessly called Unsworth a “pedo guy”. Wood also represented the
Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann when he sued numerous media
outlets for defamation over coverage of a viral encounter between Covington
students and attendees of an Indigenous Peoples March.
Wood, whose
Twitter biography includes a hashtag associated with QAnon, “#WWG1WGA”,
declined to comment on his belief in QAnon, his view of other conspiracies
Greene has promoted, or her history of bigoted statements. He confirmed the
donation as a matter of public record and said he represented Greene, adding:
“You would be wise to leave me out of your propaganda piece.”
Greene also
received donations from major Republican donors, including Tatnall Hillman, who
was described by Colorado Politics as “a secretive Aspen billionaire who
annually makes multi-million contributions to Republican candidates”; Lenore
Broughton, who was described by Vermont paper Seven Day as “a Burlington
heiress with a history of funding conservative causes”, and Cherna Moskowitz,
the head of the Irving Moskowitz Foundation and chair of the Moskowitz Prize
for Zionism.
Almost all
of the Guardian’s attempts to contact donors were unsuccessful. Greene received
$5,600 from William Pope, chief executive of NCIC Inmate Communications, a
private company that provides phone service to prisons. Asked about the
donations and Greene’s support for QAnon, Pope responded by email, “Never heard
of her!” He did not respond to follow up questions.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário