"It is hard to overstate just how fringe QAnon was when Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene began posting about it in November 2017, when she posted a video praising Q as a "patriot." The movement was led by "Q," someone who claimed to be a government insider and who posted what they claimed was top secret intel in posts, known as "drops," on the anonymous message board 4chan."
"Already, Jeffrey Epstein was among the key characters in the QAnon universe. Epstein was first mentioned just two weeks after QAnon began in late October 2017 and was referenced dozens of times in the almost 5,000 posts Q wrote over the following three years. Like all good conspiracy theories, this one contained a kernel of truth: The fact that Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution solicitation charges meant QAnon supporters felt emboldened to believe every wild allegation that Q put forward."
Donald Trump controlled the conspiracy-theory spin around Jeffrey Epstein for almost a decade, and those theories helped buoy his political standing. New Epstein documents and public defections by GOP lawmakers recently weakened and unraveled that control. The movement coalesced around QAnon after fringe promotion accelerated in late 2017, including public praise from Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Q claimed insider status and posted alleged secret intelligence on 4chan in posts called "drops," alleging a cabal of Democratic and Hollywood elites running a global sex-trafficking ring. Epstein featured early and repeatedly; his 2008 guilty plea provided a kernel of truth that emboldened believers, and QAnon cast Trump as a hero fighting the "deep state" and promising "the storm."
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