While his more vocally extreme far-right counterparts have been booted from social media platforms, Jack Posobiec remains on Twitter, trafficking in some of the same conspiracy theories that encouraged the Capitol insurrection—despite his role in supporting the so-called Stop the Steal movement from its earliest stages.
On Nov. 4, as absentee ballots piled up in favor of Joe Biden, far-right activist Ali Alexander began organizing the so-called Stop the Steal campaign, calling on Posobiec to join the effort in his home state of Pennsylvania. The far-right activist and One America News Network host had already participated in a 2018 Stop the Steal campaign with Alexander and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone, a convicted felon who was on the receiving end of a pardon from his friend Donald Trump. The "steal" they were baselessly alleging was ostensibly the election for U.S. Senate from Florida, which was ultimately won by Republican Rick Scott.
Posobiec, who came to fame pushing the thoroughly false “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, began posting on Twitter about the current Stop the Steal effort shortly after Alexander’s request, using the platform to push unsubstantiated claims that the election had been stolen from Trump. He attended multiple Stop the Steal rallies, and spoke at the first two major rallies in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12, as well as at the “warm-up” rally held the day before the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. After the insurrection, Posobiec told his supporters in a Periscope broadcast that “if we’re going to say we can’t storm a federal courthouse, we have to say the same about the U.S. Capitol,” before appearing to baselessly suggest anti-fascist activists were to blame in a now-deleted tweet.
But while Alexander has been kicked off Twitter after posting a video saying he didn’t disavow the protest at the Capitol (in addition to others since unearthed of Alexander advocating violence), Posobiec, despite all of his conspiracy theories, remains.
With his more than 1.1 million Twitter followers, Posobiec’s account received the most engagements—defined as retweets, quote tweets, and replies—among tweets about the inauguration of Joe Biden, according to the non-profit research organization Advance Democracy, Inc., which examined Twitter posts from Jan. 15-17. ADI identified his inauguration tweets in that three day span to receive more than 79,700 engagements.
“They are instituting thought vetting for the troops guarding inauguration to make sure they aren’t conservative,” Posobiec claimed Sunday on Twitter. “This isn’t about national security … Understand where it is all leading.”
Other tweets were more to the point. Replying to a tweet by Sen. Lindsey Graham (who fell from MAGA world graces when he recognized Biden as president-elect) about Chinese concentration camps and reeducation camps, Posobiec tweeted Monday, “Like what the Left wants for conservatives?”
In another, he suggested a discussion about white men participating in right-wing extremism as a result of losing privilege historically was an example of “genocide talk.”
In a Jan. 18 tweet, Posobiec said, “If you are in the National Guard and are being 'vetted' for conservative political beliefs, report it to your IG and open an investigation.” In others, he claimed that there was an “illegal and outrageous 'vetting' of National Guard for conservative sentiments.” On Tuesday, Posobiec denounced as "loyalty tests" the removal of two members of the National Guard assigned to protect the inauguration for possible links to right-wing extremist groups from their assignment in Washington, D.C., for inauguration.
In a Jan. 15 Periscope broadcast, he referred to Biden as “Snow Biden” in reference to the despotic presidential character in “The Hunger Games,” a comparison he has also pushed in tweets.
