Oct. 4 (UPI) — The House has voted 371-18 to condemn QAnon after a representative received death threats.
Seventeen Republicans and one Independent, Justin Amash, I-Mich., voted against the House Resolution 1154, with all Democrats present voting in favor of it Friday.
QAnon is “a movement promoting a collection of unfounded conspiracy theories,” according to the resolution, which condemned QAnon and the conspiracy theories that it promotes.
The resolution noted that the FBI has found that “fringe political conspiracy theories,” including QAnon, “very likely motivate some domestic extremist, wholly or in part, to engage in criminal or violent activity.”
Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who co-sponsored the resolution, received death threats from QAnon supporters after a false GOP ad accused him of lobbying “to protect sexual predators.”
The other sponsor was Denver Riggelman, R-Va.
“Conspiracy theories, just like this one, have fueled prejudice, terrorism, even genocide and today, social media is fanning the flames,” Malinowski said while speaking on the House floor Friday.
The resolution also condemned all other groups and ideologies, “from the far left to the far right,” which contribute to baseless conspiracy theories that encourage Americans to destroy public and private property and attack law enforcement officers. And it encouraged the FBI and law enforcement to crack down on criminal activity, which “fringe conspiracy theories,” such as QAnon, motivate.
Furthermore, the resolution encouraged all Americans regardless of political affiliation to seek information from authoritative sources and engage in political debate based on facts.
QAnon supporters, who President Donald Trump thanked at a White House press briefing in August for supporting him, believe that Trump is secretly battling “deep state” factions of Satanic pedophiles.
The movement formed on anonymous message boards in 2017, with QAnon supporters claiming that its theories inspired them to commit six crimes, the resolution noted.
Among them, first, a man arrested for plotting a bomb in 2018 at the Illinois Capitol rotunda to make Americans aware of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory. Second, a man arrested for a heavily-armed stand-off on the Hoover Dam bridge in 2018. Third, a man arrested in 2019 for vandalizing a Catholic church. Fourth, a woman in Colorado arrested in 2019 for plotting an armed raid to kidnap her child, who had been taken from her custody. Fifth, a man charged with murder of an organized crime boss in New York in 2019. Sixth, a woman arrested in New York with a car full of knives after posting a video accusing Joe Biden of participating in child sex trafficking and threatening to kill him.
Independent Justin Amash, who voted against the resolution, defended his position in a tweet.
“The resolution threatens protected speech (absurd as that speech may be), and its prescriptions for addressing QAnon aren’t appropriate for what we know about them, and may make things worse,” Amash tweeted.
