Walmart, Amazon, and corporate giants donated cash to the re-election crusade of a Tennessee state legislator who had used social media to magnify and publicize QAnon’s conspiracy theory, according to an Associated Press review of the candidate’s crusade financial records and publications.
Corporate for a politician who sells QAnon is another example of how conspiracy theory has penetrated dominant politics, extending beyond its origins in bulletin forums popular among right-wing extremists.
Dozens of QAnon-selling applicants ran for federal or state positions in this election cycle; collectively, they have raised millions of dollars from thousands of donors; individually, however, most of them have carried out poorly funded campaigns with little or no help from companies or parties. Unlike State Rep. Susan Lynn, who chairs the Tennessee House of Representatives finance committee, few licensees can take money out of the CAP.
Although he continually posted a well-known slogan of QAnon on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, Lynn told the AP in an interview Friday that he did not know the conspiracy theory.
Amazon said in a statement that it “made a donation to Representative Lynn about a year ago; we don’t plan on doing another one. “
Walmart did not respond to repeated requests for feedback through its website. A spokeswoman for another donor of Lynn’s crusade, the Kentucky-based Brown-Forman distillery, which owns a Tennessee facility, said the company was unaware of Lynn’s QAnon publications and would not. donate to your crusade through your Jack Daniel PAC. if that were the case.
“Now that our awareness has increased, we will reassess our donation criteria to identify affiliations like this in the future,” Conway said in a statement.
CAP corporate officials sometimes seek help based on narrow and pragmatic policy issues rather than broader political concerns, said Anthony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College and a crusader finance expert.
“In many cases, there is no oversight of the board or any kind of duty in terms of reviewing contributions before they are made,” Corrado said. “Some corporations have now followed policies on overseeing CAP contributions due to the reputational hazards involved. “
At least 81 existing and pre-congressional applicants supported the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content, with at least 24 applicants in the November general election, according to liberal watchdog Media Matters for America.
By Friday, applicants had jointly raised about $5 million in contributions for this election cycle, however, only 8 had raised more than $100,000 individually, according to AP’s review of Federal Election Commission data. The FEC’s online database does not report fundraising for 30 of the applicants, the vast majority of whom run as Republicans.
It is virtually certain that Congress will have at least one member supporting QAnon next year. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose crusade grossed more than $1 million, gave the impression that she was heading for victory in a dark red congressional district in Georgia even before her Democratic opponent retired. of the race.
At the state level, AP and Media Matters have met more than two dozen legislative candidates who have expressed interest in QAnon.
QAnon focuses on unfounded confidence that President Donald Trump is waging a secret crusade opposed to the enemies of the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking network run by satanic paedophiles and cannibals. Trump has praised QAnon supporters and retwumed accounts announcing conspiracy theory. .
QAnon has been linked to murders, kidnapping attempts and other crimes. In May 2019, an FBI bulletin mentioning QAnon warned that conspiracy-motivated extremists have a national terrorist threat.
Lynn said her social media posts didn’t imply anything for conspiracy theory.
“We’re in the United States of America and I’m probably loose to tweet or retwote whatever I want,” he said. “I don’t even notice why this is a problem. Believe me, I’m not an internal QAnon movement. “”
But in October 2019, Lynn retwent account posts selling QAnon with tens of thousands of followers. One of the messages he retwented praised Trump and included the hashtag #TheGreatAwakening, a word invoked through QAnon’s followers.
Between October 31, 2019 and January 9, 2020, he earned $4750 in donations from Amazon. com Services LLC, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee’s PAC, human fitness insurer Southwest Airlines Co. Freedom Fund and Walmart Inc.
“Like many other companies, our CAP regularly contributes to Tennessee elected officials, adding those in leadership positions like Rep. Lynn,” Tennessee BlueCross blueShield spokeswoman Dalya Qualls said in a statement.
In April, Lynn updated her Facebook page with a canopy photo that included a star flag forming a “Q” above the abbreviation “WWG1WGA”, which represents QAnon’s slogan “Where we’re going one, we’re all going. “In May and June, Lynn scored several tweets with the same abbreviation.
And when a QAnon supporter nicknamed “Prayer Doctor” tweeted the message, “Is it time for Q Trump demonstrations?” Lynn replied, “It’s time!”in a May 31 tweet.
Lynn said she was thinking of “Where we’re going, we’re all going” as a “very unifying slogan” and didn’t know it was a QAnon motto. However, a handful of Facebook users who responded to their updated canopy photo in April commented on the QAnon connection. The flag is no longer your canopy photo, but it can still be noticed in the thread of your page on Friday.
In July, AT
CAP connected to BlueCross BlueShield, AT
AP has contacted all the corporations mentioned in this story, some responded to requests for comment, and others declined to comment.
Andrew Milligan, Associated Press knowledge reporter in New Haven, Connecticut; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.