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Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka is no stranger to conspiracy theories. In January, for example, he suggested that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was secretly dead.
Normally, that would align him with believers in QAnon, the wacko movement that posits that the Democratic Party is run by pedophiles and also think Ginsburg is dead. But now the top figures in QAnon are coming for Gorka.
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Gorka has clashed with QAnon believers in the past. As a former White House insider, they expect him to validate that their theory is real. Instead, he frequently tweets that “Q is garbage.”
But the feud really stepped up this week. “Q,” the mysterious person or group of people who drop the “clues” that set QAnon believers off, posted a series of links about a super PAC Gorka once worked for. Then Q linked to the FBI tip line, with the implication that Gorka had committed all sorts of crimes.
Of course, QAnon readers thought, this explains it: Gorka only says QAnon is fake because he’s in on the plot. In the usual QAnon style, nothing was actually proven, but believers filled in the rest and started posting menacing tweets towards Gorka.
Patriot’s Soapbox, a 24-hour QAnon livestream on YouTube that’s central to the conspiracy theory’s origin story, posted Gorka’s address and his wife’s name. QAnon followers on Twitter starting posting pictures of his house.
Given that QAnon followers have been tied to two recent murders, the attacks on Gorka have the potential to become more than casual doxxing on the internet. Then a major figure in QAnon world took it further.
Dave Hayes, a religious “healer” and QAnon personality who goes by the handle “Praying Medic,” went on Trump superfan Bill Mitchell’s show this week to threaten Gorka more directly. Hayes has become a powerful figure in QAnon-world by blending evangelical Christianity with an obsession with Q’s mythos.
“You may want to be careful with what you say and what you do,” Hayes said. “Q put somebody on the radar yesterday, and you probably don’t want 10,000 anons from 8chan digging through your personal life.
“Right,” Mitchell said.
Hayes added that “the hunter is now the hunted.”
“The people that have been writing hit pieces about us, criticizing us, calling us fools, those people are about to have their corruption exposed,” he said. “So I’m just letting people know, I think you’re going to see a bit more of an aggressive stance on the side of people who have been taking this crap for a long time, they’re not going to take it anymore.”
Gorka didn’t respond to a request for comment.