US: Conspiracy theories and lies drive rift within GOP

A faction of local, county and state Republican officials is pushing lies, misinformation and conspiracy theories that echo those that helped inspire the violent U.S. Capitol siege, online messaging that is spreading quickly through GOP ranks fueled by algorithms that boost extreme content.

The Associated Press reviewed public and private social media accounts of nearly 1,000 federal, state, and local elected and appointed Republican officials nationwide, many of whom have voiced support for the Jan. 6 insurrection or demanded that the 2020 presidential election be overturned, sometimes in deleted posts or now-removed online forums.

Working with artificial intelligence company Deep Discovery, AP helped build a classification algorithm that matched officials to accounts on the right-wing aligned Parler. AP reporters hand-verified each match using an archived Parler dataset provided by New York University researcher Max Aliopoulios containing 13 million user profiles and 183 million posts between August 2018 and January 10, when Parler was taken offline for several weeks. AP also reviewed officials' use of alternate social media sites like Gab and Telegram.

The rhetoric exposes the GOP's internal struggle over whether the party can include traditional conservative politicians, conspiracy theorists and militias. Last week the FBI visited Republican Women's Federation of Michigan vice president and Bikers for Trump coordinator Londa Gatt to ask where she was on the day of the Capitol attack.

Gatt had helped organize busloads of Trump supporters to join her in Washington on Jan. 6. She says she climbed the scaffolding outside the Capitol building "to take a picture of the whole view." She said she gladly told FBI agents that she did nothing wrong, and left the scene as things turned violent.

Since then, Gatt has shared QAnon conspiracy theories online and recently asked her Facebook friends who participated in Capitol intrusions to send messages to Trump explaining that he didn't incite them, but instead they acted on their own volition. When asked to respond to the use of such language from state and local GOP officials, Republican National Committee press secretary Mandi Merritt said Democrats are "the Party of cancel culture where the only acceptable answer is the one that agrees with them." RNC officials say it is their right and responsibility as party leaders to share their views and opinions.

Some Republican officials are posting theories related to QAnon, which the FBI has called a domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism bulletin two weeks ago, warning of the potential for lingering violence from extremists enraged by President Joe Biden's election and emboldened by the Capitol attack.

Some officials' posts helped lead to their arrests. Two days after he joined the Capitol attack, Sacramento Republican Assembly President Jorge Riley, posted on Facebook: "I won't say I stood by. Come take my life. I'm right here." Then he posted his home address, followed by "You all will die."

He was arrested for his involvement in the insurrection and forced to resign. Neither Riley nor his attorney responded to requests for comment. Couy Griffin, a commissioner in Otero County, New Mexico who founded the group "Cowboys for Trump," entered the Capitol grounds Jan. 6, then kept posting on Parler about his support for continuing the fight, telling his fellow county commissioners that he planned to attend the Jan. 20 inauguration armed.

The Republican Party of New Mexico has distanced itself from Griffin, and an Alamogordo Republican has organized a recall effort. Griffin was arrested near a security checkpoint in Washington before the inauguration and is charged with entering a Secret Service-restricted area without permission. "I believe that maybe we're going through a cleansing process on the conservative side. But I have no faith in in in the Republican Party itself right now," Griffin said.

About two-thirds of Republicans say — contrary to all evidence — that Biden was not legitimately elected president, according to a new poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Free speech advocates say the legal definition of inciting violence is extremely narrow, and over-policing online posts could undermine democracy.

But former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Neumann worries that the continued push of misinformation and lies from officials is feeding chances of continued domestic terrorism. "What I do care about is preventing loss of life. And the only way to do that, given the size of the potential problem that we have, is to convince the GOP that they need to tell the truth. If they were to tell the truth, it reduces the number of people that law enforcement has to worry about may commit an act of violence," she said.

(Image Credit: AP)