GOP Q-Anon Candidate Arrested On Child Porn Charges

Q-Anon is the far-right conspiracy theory that Democratic leadership is involved with massive child sex trafficking operations. Ironically, it’s a Republican Q-Anon candidate who was just arrested for child porn.

Ben Gibson was one of four candidates to represent U.S. House Louisiana District 4, according to Ballotpedia, and took a heavy loss with only 6% of the vote. Though his social media pages appear to have been deleted or made private since his arrest, Raw Story reports that they were previously loaded with Q-Anon hashtags, and that Gibson openly promoted the conspiracy theory.

However, despite pushing the conspiracy theory that Democrats are running a secret pedophile ring, Gibson, who ran as a Republican, was arrested Wednesday morning, according to the Bossier County Sheriff site, charged with one count of being a fugitive, and four counts of pornography involving juveniles. No additional details are offered on the specific allegations.

According to KTBS3, Gibson has already been released on $10,000 bond.

While Gibson didn’t make it into Congress, several of his fellow Q-Anon promoters did, including Marjorie Taylor Greene. Q-Anon has spread harmful stories, including the false claim that Hillary Clinton was running a child sexual abuse ring out of the basement of a pizza shop that doesn’t actually have a basement, which resulted in a follower of the conspiracy theory showing up at Comet Ping Pong and firing a weapon, scaring and endangering patrons and employees, in the fantastical belief that he was saving children.

Filling out Ballotpedia‘s Candidate Connection survey this year, Gibson described himself in these words:

I must represent the American people and for as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right.