QAnon followers are turning on right-wing poster child Kyle Rittenhouse after he dubbed one of their most prominent members “insane.”
The 18-year-old who killed two people and wounded another during protests in Wisconsin just one year ago has been in the news recently thanks to a lengthy and bizarre self-defense trial that ended with his acquittal. The newly-freed Rittenhouse is currently doing the right-wing talk show circuit to talk about the charges, and, naturally, the subject of his former attorney, Lin Wood, came up. Wood left Rittenhouse’s defense team in order to help Donald Trump push election fraud conspiracy theories and to represent a handful of MAGA followers involved in the Jan. 6th insurrection. Before that, however, he helped raise $2 million for Rittenhouse’s defense fund, funneling donations through a Texas nonprofit he created with fellow Rittenhouse lawyer John Pierce.
Now, both Wood and Pierce are asking for that money, which they put towards the teen’s initial bail, back and Rittenhouse is finally airing his grievances with Wood who he says is just another QAnon whacko out for financial gain. When asked by NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield (via Newsweek) to clarify what he meant, Rittenhouse had this to say:
“How he thinks he’s God and he just says all these weird things. Like, ‘We’re going to keep that boy in jail because there’s not gonna be any civil or criminal cases in the election,’ which is just complete insanity.”
In an exclusive interview with NewsNation's Ashleigh Banfield, Kyle Rittenhouse says he never meant to pose with the Proud Boys, and blamed his former attorneys for introducing them.
Catch the full interview tonight on 'Banfield' at 10/9C.
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Rittenhouse is talking about his mother’s accusation that Wood was trying to keep her son behind bars instead of posting bail in order to raise more money early on in the case. He also clarified that the decision to fire Wood was one he shared with his mother, explaining, “We fired him, because he was, like, going on with all this QAnon and election fraud stuff and just stuff we don’t agree with.”
Of course, QAnon cultists are not happy about their former golden boy trashing a leading member of their conspiracy theory sect and they’ve started dragging Rittenhouse on sites like Telegram. A man known as QAnon John shared a clip of Rittenhouse’s interview, telling his 71,000 followers, “Not too smart to s*** where you sleep Kyle.” Ron Watkins, the man many believe to have been behind Q at one point said, “I don’t understand why he is being attacked, but the allegations certainly seem out of character and do not reflect the Lin Wood that I know.”
Others are calling Rittenhouse a “deep state crisis actor” suggesting he’s being coached or manipulated by people hoping to defame Wood and paint the QAnon movement in a negative light. Of course, they’re probably forgetting that this isn’t the first time Wood’s been fired by a right-wing white teenager who inserted himself into a protest. Earlier this year, the kid who embarrassed himself by facing off against Native American activists in Washington a couple of years ago axed Wood after learning the lawyer had called for then-Vice President Mike Pence’s execution by firing squad.
On Twitter, the teen shared one of Wood’s social media posts around the time of the Jan. 6th insurrection and wrote, “I’m sorry but what the hell.”
So maybe Wood is just a really bad lawyer who also happens to be an insane conspiracy theorist? Either way, Rittenhouse losing some of his right-wing groupies is still news.
(Via Newsweek)