Conspiracy theorist QAnon promoted, then deleted, by Hillsborough County GOP

For right-wing conspiracy theorists, an intriguing development of the Trump era has been "Q," or "QAnon," a posting handle on internet message boards 4chan and 8chan.

Claiming to be a high-level government official with a "Q" security clearance, QAnon, who is also known as "The Storm", tells followers what he purports to be the inside story of Trump's secret battle against the "deep state," including pedophilia rings run by Hillary Clinton (also known as "Pizzagate") and other Hollywood and Democratic Party elites; a foiled plot to shoot down Air Force 1; and secret deployments of the National Guard to put down the riots expected when Trump takes down the cabal of evildoers.

If it sounds a bit looney, and dangerous, that didn't stop the Hillsborough County Republican Party from posting a link to a popular YouTube guide to QAnon on the party's public Facebook page and Twitter account recently.

The post was "pinned" so it stayed at the top of the page and on Twitter, too. After a reporter asked about it, the Facebook post was unpinned, and since appears to have been removed.

Party Chairman Jim Waurishuk, an early Trump supporter, said the post was "informational … It's certainly not something we promote or subscribe to."

But the tweet,which was deleted, has since garnered national attention.

QAnon has been amplified by Breitbart's Curt Schilling, Fox's Sean Hannity, Roseanne Barr and Infowars' Alex Jones.

QAnon's speculations have inspired violence in at least one instance. A man opened fire inside a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. because of the Pizzagate theory. Just recently, however, another man was arrested and is facing terrorism charges in Arizona after using an armored vehicle to block traffic on the bridge near the Hoover Dam. Letters he wrote to President Donald Trump in jail bear the motto of QAnon: "For where we go one, we go all."