No One Knows Why This QAnon Conspiracy Theorist Was in the Oval Office with Trump

Donald Trump is a fan of conspiracy theories. Or at the very least, he falls for them often, as we saw this week when he uncritically repeated a white nationalist talking point he picked up from Tucker Carlson, who incorrectly claimed that South Africa was robbing land from white farmers.

Oddly, Trump has yet to start promoting the (for now) biggest conspiracy that he's at the center of: the supremely stupid QAnon fiasco. QAnon believers have been turning out to Trump campaign rallies lately, and as NPR reports, they believe that Trump is signalling them that he's in the know with their elaborate fantasy about an international pedophile ring, but when questioned by the NPR reporter no one was able to point to anything specific.

That changed Friday. One of the leading lights of the QAnon conspiracy theory, Michael Lionel Lebron, posted a photo of him and his wife beaming next to Trump in the Oval Office, captioned, "There are simply no words to explicate this profound honor."

As the Washington Post reports:

Lebron, who regularly posts videos on a “Lionel Nation” YouTube channel, has urged viewers to absorb Q’s posts and follow along for clues of the coming “storm.” He also frequently appears on the Russian-funded television network RT, where he is cited as a “legal and media analyst,” and typically offers positive commentary about Trump.

“Q’s it. The bomb. The future. The ignition switch, the connection, the conduit,” Lebron wrote in a July 4 blog post. “It’s like having your own personal Deep Throat, your own Mark Felt. Just imagine that. Better, where Commissioner Gordon summoned Batman through the bat signal, here our Batman summons us when he, she, it or they feel it necessary.”

In the photo he posted with Trump, Lebron assured his followers that the president definitely knows about the QAnon conspiracy, though he's also claimed that they didn't explicitly talk about it. If that sounds confusing, it's nothing compared to the fact that no one can seem to account for how or why Lebron was in the Oval Office in the first place. Per The Daily Beast, which first reported on Lebron's rendezvous with the president:

All four White House officials the Beast did speak with about how Trump, the leader of the free world, ended up in a smiling photo op at the Resolute Desk with a prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist, pleaded ignorance about when this occurred, and why. Two of these West Wing officials audibly could not contain their laughter.

“This president is a president for all Americans,” one joked, including conspiracy theorists.

It is highly unlikely that Lebron and his spouse were simply able to casually stumble into this meeting while on a White House tour, for instance. Those familiar with how this Oval Office operates say that typically the only way that an Oval photo op between President Trump and strangers would even happen is if a senior official vouched for the guests and waved them in.

Trump should be commended for his extreme efforts at government transparency. This is the first time in ages that apparently any con artist who can work a doorknob has the freedom to wander into the White House and snap photos with no one knowing what the hell is going on.