The head of New York’s second-largest police union was seen giving interviews with a QAnon mug prominently placed in the background.
The president of the Association of Benevolent Sergeants of the New York Police, Ed Mullins, was seen at least twice in a week giving on-air interviews with a mug with the QAnon logo on his shoulder.
QAnon is known for advocating a far-right conspiracy theory that alleges a secret “deep state” plot against President Trump and his supporters. There has not yet been any conclusive proof of these claims, initially made by an anonymous poster called Q on the 4chan website.
New York Sergeants Association union chairman Ed Mullins gave two television interviews in which a QAnon cup was seen in the background over his left shoulder
The appearance of the Qanon Cup interview was viewed and shared online by a Twitter user on Friday.
The QAnon mug was most recently seen in an interview Mullins did with Neil Cavuto of Fox News on Friday.
During the interview, the mug can be seen sitting on top of a printer over Mullins’ left shoulder.
The black mug, made more obvious by standing in front of a white-framed document, bears a ‘Q’ logo designed with the logo of an American flag. It also reads ‘QANON’ and includes the popular group slogan hashtag ‘WWG1WGA’, which means ‘Where we go one, we all go’.
When news of the cup’s interview presence hit social media, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary Bill Neidhardt responded to a tweet with a screenshot of the interview, simply writing : ‘Delusional’.
Mullins and de Blasio have clashed lately, due to de Blasio’s current commitment to withdraw $ 1 billion from the New York police budget and sign bills that make it a crime for city police to put pressure on neck, chest, or back. it could obstruct breathing while taking them into custody.
Eagle-eyed social media users noted that the QAnon mug also appeared in an earlier interview by Mullins on July 13, though it was slightly less prominently placed back then.
Ed Mullins claimed that neither the office where the interviews were recorded nor the mug were his.
The featured interview mug appears to have the same design as this mug, with the group slogan ‘WWG1WGA’, meaning ‘Where we go one, we all go’
Officers caught in those acts could face minor charges, the New York Daily News reported.
In response, several New York State Police Departments, including Westchester and Suffolk counties, issued orders prohibiting their officers from pursuing or participating in arrests in New York City to avoid legal trouble, according to SBA tweets. .
It has been argued that police officers may need to apply at least some fleeting pressure to those specific areas while making arrests.
Eagle-eyed social media users noted that Mullins’ July 17 interview wasn’t the first time that a cup of QAnon got screen time.
The same mug was seen in the background of a Fox News interview that Mullins did on July 13.
During that interview, the mug also sat in the printer on her left shoulder, but the mug was closer to the wall and not as prominent.
“No one noticed when he did the same thing a few days ago, so he made the cup a little more prominent today,” wrote a tweeter about the cup’s new position in the most recent interview.
It is unclear whether Mullins was aware of the cup’s presence at the bottom of his interviews or who could have placed it there.
When asked about the mug, Mullins told HuffPost that neither the mug nor the office he interviewed belonged to him. He also claimed that he had no idea what QAnon was.
Mullins declined to reveal whether the office belonged to someone from the SBA, but noted that “he wasn’t even in New York.”
Mullins does not appear to have any prior connection to QAnon, but HuffPost noted that the SBA has linked to articles on a far-right police news site called Law Enforcement Today, which has endorsed congressional candidates who support the conspiracy theory.
There are at least 50 Republican candidates running for public office who have ‘endorsed or credited’ QAnon, including 11 who will stand for election in November,
Mullins is just the latest prominent political figures to have been linked to QAnon, a conspiracy theory that falsely claims, among many other fantastic allegations, that Democratic officials are secretly operating a worldwide pedophilia network.
Former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn recently posted a video using QAnon phrases and slogans.
And a report by liberal watchdog group Media Matters found that there are 59 Republican candidates for public office who have “endorsed or credited” QAnon. At least 13 of those candidates will appear on the ballots in November.
Over the weekend of July 4, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was seen on video along with family members reciting QAnon’s oath and slogans.
Trump himself is known to have retweeted tweets related to QAnon.
The concept that someone like Mullins, who has obvious ties to the police, supports QAnon is “terrifying” because the group “engages in the illegal and unconstitutional use of the military as a police force to hold courts and execute enemies of the United States. “Mike Rothschild, author of The World’s Worst Conspiracies, told CNN.
The SBA currently has some 13,000 active and retired New York Police Sergeants among its members.
The FBI released an official statement declaring that “domestic extremists fueled by conspiracy theory,” including QAnon, is a growing threat in May 2019.
What is Qanon?
Origins: Q Anon started on the marginal 4chan website, where a poster calling himself Q left messages claiming to be a high-ranking federal official and intended to reveal a full ‘deep state’ intention to bring down Donald Trump. Q grew out of Pizzagate’s discredited conspiracy that top Democrats were involved in pedophilia and cannibalism from a Washington DC restaurant basement, but quickly buoyed up with ‘Q’ leaving ‘clues’ and claiming Trump was going to shoot down the depths been. Whenever the conspiracies turn out to be untrue, followers rationalize that inaccuracies are part of Q’s larger plan.
Who is Q?: Now there can be multiple people posing as Q on 4chan’s anonymous boards
A QAnon believer blocked the bridge near the Hoover Dam with a homemade armored tank on behalf of the movement, and later pleaded guilty to terrorism
Hoover Dam: In June 2019, 32-year-old QAnon supporter Matthew Wright blocked the bridge near the Hoover Dam in Arizona with a homemade armored vehicle in a 90-minute standoff. He pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and has written two letters to Donald Trump from jail, including logoff, which has become QAnon’s motto: “Where we go one, we all go.”
Michael Flynn: Trump’s former national security adviser became a martyr figure for QAnon believers after accepting a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, admitting that he lied about his contacts in Russia. QAnon’s conspiracy has caused Flynn to plead guilty to being a persecuted victim of the deep state, with some even claiming that he is ‘Q’.
Many believers put three-star emojis next to their Twitter IDs. But the retired three-star general denounced any connection to the group and withdrew from participating in an event after discovering it was organized by a QAnon believer.
QAnon believers cause former national security adviser Michael Flynn to become a martyr after reaching an agreement with Robert Mueller
QAnon political candidates: Jo Rae Perkins, 64, won the Republican primaries in Oregon in May to run for a Senate seat against current Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. “I’m with Q and the team,” she said when asked about her interest in the group. She insisted that she goes to the QAnon forums as a “source of information” and claims that the media is too focused on the group. Perkins won 49 percent of the vote against three other Republicans.
Marjorie Taylor Greene took first place in the Republican primaries in a bright red-light district of Georgia, and will enter a second round in August. She has admitted to believing in various QAnon conspiracy theories.
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