Top Republicans Hit Up QAnon Conspiracy Nuts for Cash

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Some of the most prominent names in Republican politics are hitting up readers of a leading right-wing conspiracy website to raise money and build their contact lists. The latest is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), whose campaign sent out a fundraising appeal Wednesday on the email list of the site Big League Politics.

Run by consultants for far-right Republicans such as Roy Moore, Corey Stewart, and Paul Nehlen, Big League’s editorial side is overseen by Patrick Howley, a former Breitbart writer who has called Infowars leader Alex Jones “my Walter Cronkite.” Under Howley’s leadership, the site has given voice to an array of fringy conspiracy theories, such as the recently popularized “QAnon” movement. It has promoted claims that the late Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered in 2016 due to his involvement in the hacking of Democratic National Committee email accounts, cast doubt on widely accepted findings of chemical-weapon attacks by the Syrian government, and tried to explain away a white supremacist’s slaying of a demonstrator at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.