David Corn: GOP Secretary of State Candidates Scheduled to Appear with...Conspiracy Theorists

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/10/gop-secretary-of-state-candidates-mark-finchem-marchant-karamo-scheduled-to-appear-with-a-white-nationalist-and-conspiracy-theorists/

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GOP Secretary of State Candidates Scheduled to Appear with a White Nationalist and Conspiracy Theorists
They’re not even trying to hide their ties to the extremist fringe.
David Corn
Washington, DC, Bureau ChiefBio | Follow


An ally of white nationalists; a former CEO and conspiracy theorist who tried to convince Donald Trump to use the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election; an Ohio math teacher who claims he discovered an algorithm showing that virtually every county in the United States was hacked to prevent Trump’s reelection two years ago—these are people with whom Republican secretary of state candidates have forged alliances.

Mark Finchem, Jim Marchant, and Kristina Karamo, each an election denialist and a GOP contender for secretary of state in, respectively, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan, were scheduled to appear October 29 at a self-described “Florida Election Integrity Conference 2.0” in Orlando. Also on the bill: other proponents of Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen from him. The event, one in a series of such conferences being mounted by 2020 truthers across the country, shows how these Republican candidates are closely tied to right-wing extremism. The previous conference in this series, held in New Mexico, was moderated by Lara Logan, the past CBS News reporter who has recently been mouthing bonkers QAnon-ish claims that a Satanic global cabal of elitists is kidnapping hundreds of thousands of children to drink their blood. (She has been booted off Fox News and Newsmax for her conspiracy-driven ravings.)

The Florida event is moderated by Carolyn Ryan, who works for Real America’s Voice, a conservative network that broadcasts Steve Bannon’s daily show and has promoted QAnon material. Scheduled speakers at the conference—in addition to the three Republican secretary of state candidates—include Laura Loomer, Patrick Byrne, and Douglas Frank, each a luminary in the 2020 truther movement.

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It’s not surprising that Finchem, Marchant, and Karamo would participate in an election denialism shindig. They have each championed Trump’s lies. Moreover, Finchem has hobnobbed with QAnoners and 9/11 truthers; Karamo was slated to appear at a QAnon conference last year; and Marchant in 2021 spoke at a QAnon event, where he said he had been convinced to run for secretary of state by a key QAnon influencer. Yet this conference is a reminder of how far gone the GOP is. Leading Republicans, who are vying for positions critical to the operations of elections in swing states, are not bothering to hide their ties to fringe players, bigots, and loony conspiracy theorists, not even in the final days of the campaign. There’s not much integrity in the so-called election integrity movement, but these events certainly are accurate displays of how extreme and unhinged the GOP has become.