Following the COVID-19 death of a radio host after a ReAwaken America Tour event last year, QAnon-friendly lawyer Lin Wood has now publicly cut ties with the right-wing roadshow, seemingly accusing its organizer of intentionally making attendees sick.
The events, held at mega-churches across the country, had been headlined by Wood alongside MAGA dead-enders and luminaries like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Trump’s pardoned national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell.
But now the pro-Trump lawyer, who once suggested that former Vice President Mike Pence should be assassinated, has been publicly bashing the tour, which is organized by right-wing conspiracy theorist Clay Clark. And this week Wood confirmed to The Daily Beast that he will no longer participate in the conference, which has upcoming events in Ohio and Oklahoma.
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“I believe that I am following a different path than the one chosen by Clay to follow,” Wood said of his now-ended relationship with what he last month labeled a “traveling circus show.” (Wood did not speak at the latest ReAwaken America event, which was held mid-January in Phoenix, Arizona.)
Asked by The Daily Beast if his exit has anything to do with his very public spats with Flynn, his ally-turned-enemy, Wood simply responded: “No.”
One of the main issues for Wood appears to be the tour’s handling of the death of right-wing radio host Doug Kuzma, the lawyer’s pal and ally. The anti-vax conspiracy theorist died earlier this year following a battle with the coronavirus after attending the December stop of the ReAwaken America Tour in Dallas.
Former university professor turned election denialist David Clements, a close ally of Wood’s, has attempted to lay blame for Kuzma’s death on Clark. “I hope some of the questions asked surround the Dallas event, Joe [Oltmann] and many others falling severely ill, the death of Doug Kuzma, Clay being put on notice of those falling ill and then denying it,” Clements, who has also split from the tour, fumed on Telegram in late January.
In private, Clark alleged, Wood has told allies that the organizer has been “trying to make people sick” with the events.
In a recording of a phone conversation Clark shared with The Daily Beast, Wood purportedly and somewhat incoherently claimed the ReAwaken America Tour is “doing this to try and get people sick, go get mistreated with ivermectin, go back, they need to be treated with doxycycline—it’s bacterial, it’s not viral. It’s all a setup.” The lawyer added: “Clay Clark is responsible for it. That’s what I think.”
And over the past month, Wood has posted a flurry of messages to his Telegram channel personally attacking Clark, in one instance alleging the conference organizer is involved with the Illuminati, the shadowy cabal central to many outlandish conspiracy theories.
“I do not work with the Illuminati,” Clark responded. “Father of five kids,” he added before rattling off the churches where he regularly attends Mass. “I am not the Illuminati… and I am not a chain-smoking vaper that attacks people on Telegram,” he added in reference to Wood.
Elsewhere, Wood has labeled the ReAwaken America Tour to be a “grift” of sorts.
“I wonder if Clay Clark and Mike Flynn will invite Bill Maher to their next Paytriot event to speak on Covid?” Wood wrote in a late January post on Telegram. The insult “Paytriot” is the far-right equivalent of suggesting someone disingenuously associates with the diehard MAGA cause for the sake of making money.
The public beefing is just the latest bizarre saga for the ReAwaken America Tour, which has been continually engulfed in drama.
Late last year, after multiple attendees (including Kuzma, who died) fell ill following the Dallas stop of the tour, several far-right personalities baselessly fantasized that the conference had been the victim of an anthrax attack rather than facing the reality that it may have been yet another COVID-19 outbreak amid a global pandemic.
