Kari Lake to attend another fundraiser hosted by QAnon conspiracy backer

For the second time in a month, Senate candidate Kari Lake is scheduled to hold a fundraiser hosted by someone who has promoted the QAnon and other fringe conspiracy theories online.

This time, she’ll be joined by one of the U.S. Senate’s highest-ranking Republicans.

Lake and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chair of the Senate Republican Conference, are scheduled to appear Thursday at a fundraiser hosted by Monica and Brad Litle, according to an event invitation obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Lake previously attended a fundraiser hosted by two other QAnon supporters in early February.

Monica Litle has expressed support online for several conspiracy theories not backed by evidence, according to a review of her social media.

On Truth Social, the social media site founded by former President Donald Trump, an Arizona-based account under her name has shared content promoting the “QAnon” conspiracy theory, a belief system centered on claims made by an anonymous individual known as “Q” that holds that Trump is fending off forces of evil within the government, often involving child sex trafficking. 

“This really is the entire lynchpin of everything from the Devolution Theory to the Q Op and the Great Awakening itself,” reads a post from last year that Litle shared. “Either Donald Trump considered himself a Wartime President, and acted accordingly to root out a Deep State Globalist Insurgency, while defending from foreign subversion, or he did not.”

Another post that Litle shared includes screenshots of posts from “Q.” The post appeared to suggest that the uncanny predictions of the television show “The Simpsons” are evidence of Satan-linked forces enlisting the world’s elites “to assist in their evil plans for us.”

“It’s all planned. It’s called Predictive Programming and Revelation of the Method,” the post reads. “It is a form of ritual mocking of the victim.”

In 2021, Litle posted an image on Facebook arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic was part of an effort to establish a “social credit score” and a “universal digital currency” controlled by the government. Earlier that year, she shared another Facebook post suggesting that the pandemic and vaccine effort involved a conspiracy among large pharmaceutical companies and financial elites.

In 2022, she shared a Truth Social post calling former President Barack Obama a “Satanist” and promoting the discredited theory, once amplified by Trump, that he was not born in the U.S.

Lake’s campaign declined to comment.

Lake’s fundraiser with Barrasso comes weeks after the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm endorsed her, a sign of her support from D.C. Republicans even while she has yet to officially secure the GOP nomination in Arizona.

Before Lake launched her campaign, some national Republicans were skeptical of her candidacy, in part because she continued to use inflammatory rhetoric about stolen elections, The Arizona Republic has reported. But leading Republicans have increasingly warmed to her campaign, with another Senate GOP leader, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., praising Lake as “very gifted” in a CNN interview even as he advised her to “look to the future” rather than focus on elections of the past.

Some other Republican leaders have canceled events when the host’s support for fringe conspiracy theories became known. In 2020, former Vice President Mike Pence canceled a fundraiser in Montana after the Associated Press reported on the hosts’ social media posts supporting QAnon.

Monica Litle, media contacts for Barrasso’s office, and Lake’s Senate campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Brad Litle declined to answer questions on the phone.

The fundraiser is scheduled to take place at the Litles’ home in Paradise Valley, according to the event invitation. The price of tickets ranged from $250 to $6,600 per person.

Laura Gersony covers national politics for The Arizona Republic. Contact her at 480-372-0389 or lgersony@gannett.com.