Oregon state senators use QAnon-affiliated and far-right shows to promote their lawsuit claiming the federal government inflated COVID numbers

A pair of Oregon Republican legislators, state Sens. Dennis Linthicum and Kim Thatcher, have appeared on multiple QAnon-affiliated and far-right shows to promote a lawsuit they are involved with that claims the federal government inflated COVID-19 numbers.

The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Oregon in March 2022 by Linthicum, Thatcher, and naturopathic doctor Henry Ealy, who has spread COVID-19 misinformation. It claims that the federal government “failed to ensure and/or willfully manipulated data being collected, analyzed, and published,” causing “a significant hyperinflation of COVID-19 case, hospitalization, and death counts,” which they claim was used to defraud taxpayers of at least $3.5 trillion in public funds between 2020 and 2022. (The claim that COVID-19 cases were overcounted during the pandemic is dubious.)

The plaintiffs want to empanel a special grand jury and present “evidence of alleged crimes relating to the federal government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The case was dismissed in November 2022, but the group appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In recent weeks, Linthicum — who is also a former treasurer of the Oregon Republican Party — and Thatcher went on several programs affiliated with the QAnon conspiracy theory to promote the case.

On November 17, Linthicum and Thatcher appeared on Right Now with Ann Vandersteel, which is hosted by a known QAnon supporter who also promotes the extreme ideology of the sovereign citizen movement. During the interview, Vandersteel praised them and Ealy as “incredible” for “com[ing] together to adjudicate the problem that apparently our government seems incapable of doing” with the “COVID fraud.”

Linthicum also pushed COVID-19 misinformation during the appearance, falsely claiming that “face masks don’t work.”