Pence drops Montana fundraiser hosted by QAnon supporters

Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday pulled out of an upcoming fundraiser being hosted by a Montana couple associated with the controversial, far-right QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

Mr. Pence will no longer attend the event being hosted by Caryn and Michael Borland in Bozeman, the Associated Press first reported. He is set to campaign for President Trump elsewhere instead.

A senior campaign official told The Washington Times that a schedule change will result in Mr. Pence attending a rally in Wisconsin and then another for the Montana state Republican Party.

The AP first reported on Wednesday this past week that Mr. Pence would to attend the fundraising event and that its hosts, the Borlands, had clear ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

Mr. Borland has prominently featured QAnon symbols on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, and his wife has retweeted or engaged with related social media accounts as well, the AP reported.

The couple did not return calls seeking comment, the AP reported. The Times could not immediately reach them.

QAnon started in 2017 and was fueled at first by cryptic internet postings attributed to a person, “Q.” In has since expanded to encompass several pro-Trump and far-right conspiracy theories.

A bulletin issued by an FBI field office last year described QAnon believers as possible domestic terrorism threats, and a resolution denouncing the movement was recently introduced in Congress.

Questioned about QAnon during a White House press briefing last month, Mr. Trump said he appreciates the support its proponents have for his presidency and failed to condemn them.

Several other prominent members of the Republican Party — including Mr. Pence – have subsequently either denounced QAnon or tried to distance themselves from it.

“I don’t know anything about QAnon, and I dismiss it out of hand,” Mr. Pence said on “CBS This Morning” last month.

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming has called QAnon “a dangerous lunacy,” and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California said it has no place in the GOP.

Indeed, opposition to QAnon has event brought politicians from either side of the political spectrum together evidenced by a bipartisan resolution offered last month on Capitol Hill.

Proposed by Reps. Tom Malinowski, New Jersey Democrat, and Denver Riggleman, Virginia Republican, the resolution reads in part that conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon “undermine trust in America’s democratic institutions, encourage rejection of objective reality and deepen our nation’s political polarization.”