The targeting of Jan. 6 star witness Cassidy Hutchinson by the mysterious internet account behind the QAnon conspiracy theory could pose a threat to her safety, a former deputy director of the FBI told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday
"Well, another person lining up against Cassidy Hutchinson is the online poster, Q, whose completely absurd posts, which would be laughably cryptic and are actually never accurate are at the heart of the movement," CNN's Anderson Cooper reported. "After 18 months of silence, the Q account is back and on Wednesday, it aimed its conspiracies towards Hutchinson."
"It's really too stupid to even show the posts of this Q person, but they contain numerous cryptic questions and ended with asking who is Cassidy Hutchinson? And 'trust the plan,' which is a common Q catchphrase. The Q stuff would be funny if it didn't have real-world consequences, the FBI says it's arrested more than 20 people involved in Capitol riots who said they followed Qanon."
Cooper replayed an interview with a former member of the cult who thought he himself was "worshipping Satan, drinking the blood of children" after the CNN anchor was mentioned by Q.
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For analysis, Cooper interviewed former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
"Andrew, what is the significance of Q mentioning Hutchinson and what could be, do you think, the real-world consequences?" Cooper asked.
McCabe said, "There is no significance to the post beyond the fact that he included her name specifically. It's not because he said anything logical or factual, it's just the existence of her name in that post turns her into a target for people who ascribe to these beliefs."
He said the fact her name was listed is "very, very damaging to her in terms of the attention it will bring who believe in, who knows which of the Qanon conspiracies."
"And so if you toss this young woman's name into that conversation, into that froth, you run the risk that someone who is following these things and who's projecting their own rage and their dissatisfaction about whatever it is in life they're mad about is going to attach her to that and one of those people, maybe more than one, might decide to take the matter into their own hands and resort to an act of violence in the exact same way that the young man from North Carolina did about the nonsense around Comet Ping-Pong Pizza, the pizza restaurant here in Washington, D.C. when he had been digesting this material, got in his car, drove to D.C. on a Sunday with an AR-15 intending to shoot up the place."