Michigan GOP Secretary of State candidate to speak at QAnon conference

Karamo spoke last week at a Michigan Capitol rally urging lawmakers to order a “forensic audit” of the 2020 election. State Rep. Daire Rendon, R-Lake City, wore a QAnon button to the rally and told The Detroit News that Q is “the highest level of security in the federal government.”

This weekend’s “Double Down” conference in Las Vegas is being hosted by The Patriot Voice, a group led by John Sabal, also known as QAnon John, who organized a similar event in Dallas in May. 

Ahead of the May event, Sabal told his online followers that he had considered removing Q references from promotional materials to “protect” speakers “because of the MASSIVE amount of negative publicity we have gotten in the MSM and continue to get.”

But, Sabal wrote on Telegram, a conservative social media site, he felt “vindicated” when former Trump attorney L. Lin Wood appeared to endorse the conspiracy by drawing a Q in the air and stating “”there’s your Q” during a separate convention in Tulsa. 

“This couldn’t come in better timing, as The Patriot Voice will magnify that TRUTH to an entirely new level,” Sabal wrote in April.

Like the Dallas event, the pending Las Vegas conference has proven controversial since it was announced, with local newspapers and television outlets reporting on the QAnon connections.  

Organizers initially planned to hold the conference at Caesars casino, but casino management pulled the plug without explanation in late August. 

The Double Down event will instead be held at the Ahern Hotel, just off the Las Vegas Strip, which is owned by the Nevada Republican Party’s finance chairman, according to local CBS affiliate 8 News Now.

Karamo, who is seeking the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, has focused on “election security” in her campaign and spoke last week at a Capitol rally demanding a “forensic audit” of the 2020 election. 

According to her website, Karamo is leading a “research team” that includes former Secretary of State personnel and is “investigating the ‘governmental pathologies’ which prevent the Office of the Secretary of State from operating according to the rule of law.” 

State Rep. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain, is the only other declared Republican candidate for Secretary of State, but Chesterfield Township Clerk Cindy Berry and Livingston County Republican Party chair Meghan Reckling are also considering campaigns for the 2022 nomination. 

“The only queue I’m interested in is the line at the Secretary of State’s offices,” LaFave told Bridge when asked about Karamo’s participation in the conference.

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