QAnon-supporting congressional candidate embraced 9/11 conspiracy theory

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who became the Republican nominee in a deep-red Georgia congressional district after a Tuesday primary, expressed support for conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks during an interview unearthed by Media Matters for America on Thursday.

In the interview uploaded by the American Priority Conference in 2018, Greene referenced “the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon.”

“It’s odd there’s never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon,” she said.

The argument that a plane did not actually hit the Pentagon, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, is a common one for 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

“But anyways, I won’t — I’m not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy. But 9/11 had happened,” Greene said.

In the same interview, Greene falsely claimed that former President Obama “is a Muslim.”

“Obama opened up our borders to an invasion by Muslims,” she said.

Greene addressed the report in a series of tweets on Thursday, saying “some people claimed a missile hit the Pentagon. I now know that is not correct.”

“I’m being attacked for my opposition to open borders and globalist neocon nation building wars,” she said.

3. Some people claimed a missile hit the Pentagon. I now know that is not correct.

The problem is our government lies to us so much to protect the Deep State, it’s hard sometimes to know what is real and what is not.

— Marjorie Taylor Greene For Congress (@mtgreenee) August 13, 2020

The Hill has reached out to Greene’s campaign for further comment.

Greene, who is considered likely to win the race to represent Georgia’s 14th District, has attracted national attention for her history of offensive remarks and embrace of conspiracy theories.

She has compared Democratic donor George Soros to a Nazi, said the 2018 midterms were like an “Islamic invasion of our government” and asserted that African Americans “are held slaves to the Democratic Party.”  

She is also one of the dozens of Republican candidates who have expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that President Trump and his allies are working together to expose a shadowy cabal of figures in media, entertainment and politics who run an internal child trafficking ring.

She said the unidentified Q is a “patriot” in a YouTube video from 2017.

“He is someone that very much loves his country, and he’s on the same page as us, and he is very pro-Trump,” Greene said. “I’m very excited about that now there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.”

Although the QAnon community initially zeroed in on false child trafficking and murder allegations, the theory has widened. Conspiracies about John F. Kennedy Jr., Wayfair cabinets and 9/11 all fit under its big tent.

Travis View, an expert on the community and co-host of the “QAnon Anonymous” podcast, told The Hill last month that it’s better to think of the theory as a “meta-conspiracy theory that can include almost any other conspiracy theory.”

So far, the Republican establishment has hesitated to condemn Greene for her support of QAnon or racist comments.

Trump offered his full support Greene on Wednesday, calling her a “future Republican Star.”

While a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) condemned some of Greene’s remarks earlier this year, he did little to stop her run-off victory.

When Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) became the first elected official in his party to condemn Greene’s support for QAnon on Wednesday, a Trump campaign official immediately called him out.

“When will @RepKinzinger condemn the Steele Dossier fabrications and conspiracy theories pushed by Democrats?” Matt Wolking, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, wrote, adding, “That actually WAS Russian propaganda.”

It remains to be seen whether Greene’s comments on 9/11 changes the calculus for the Republican establishment.