GOP secretary of state nominees will appear at event with Lara Logan, who pushes antisemitic conspiracy theories
Written by Eric Hananoki
Published
Republican secretary of state nominees from Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, and Nevada are scheduled to attend an “election integrity forum” moderated by former CBS News correspondent and Fox Nation host Lara Logan this weekend. Those candidates are associating with a far-right conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly pushed antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish people supposedly trying to manipulate American events, from the Civil War to the assassination of presidents.
New Mexico secretary of state candidate Audrey Trujillo recently announced that her campaign would host a “New Mexico Election Integrity Forum” on October 15 featuring Logan. The event will feature election-denying secretary of state candidates who have a history of promoting toxic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including in the media: Rayla Campbell (Massachusetts); Mark Finchem (Arizona); Kristina Karamo (Michigan); Jim Marchant (Nevada); and Trujillo.
Campbell is a QAnon supporter. Finchem posted QAnon propaganda on the white nationalist haven Gab. Karamo hosted an anti-LGBTQ podcast and claimed Beyoncé, Cardi B, and other musicians are tools of Satan. Marchant has forwarded bizarre conspiracy theories about a global “cabal” stealing elections. And Trujillo has claimed that Democrats and the deep state “create” school shootings so that they can “make people fearful” and “take away our guns.”
Other than Campbell, all of those candidates are part of Marchant’s America First Secretary of State Coalition, which falsely claims that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and works with QAnon influencers. They and Logan are also connected to QAnon influencer Juan O. Savin, who has pushed conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
The New Mexico event is the latest election-denying event for Logan, who has traveled across the country moderating such events in places including Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas.
Logan has increasingly associated with the QAnon community. She has also pushed numerous far-right conspiracy theories this year. Among them:
- She claimed that Darwinism is a plot from “the Rothschilds.” Antisemites have long accused the Rothschilds of masterminding world events and tragedies.
- She shared a piece claiming that Jewish people are behind “a one world government" and “central banking and big corporate money" and are the “divider and conqueror” and “the aggressor, yet always the victim." The piece also claimed the Rothschilds engineered the U.S. Civil War and the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin purged "the Rothschild money changers.”
- She claimed that January 6 was a “manufactured event. We know it was orchestrated just like Charlottesville was orchestrated.”
- She said that the United Nations is “infiltrating 100 million people into the United States as the basis for forming a regional government instead of a national government.”
Logan has continued pushing fringe claims in recent weeks.
During a September 19 video to her Locals.com channel, Logan said people came to the United States in 1776 because they were purportedly “escaping the reach of the Rothschilds and, you know, the central bankers of today.” She then proceeded to claim that the Illuminati -- a secret society that is frequently the focus of global conspiracy theories -- “were able to infiltrate” the country through seminaries and then suggested that “the same model” has been used to control government, schools, corporations, and the media.
Logan made similar remarks during a September 15 appearance on the QAnon program The Mel K Show. She said that the Pilgrims were running away from the Rothschilds and that the Illuminati were fighting with the British against the colonists. She later added: “It's absolutely no different today. We're fighting exactly the same ideology and, in some cases, you know, with people like the Rothschilds, the same people even.”