On Thursday, Lionel Lebron, a prolific promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, was photographed in the Oval Office meeting the President. In the photo Trump is flanked by LeBron and his wife. QAnon is an amorphous theory that hold that Donald Trump is battling a pedophile cult that runs the Deep State and the Democratic Party. How this photograph came to exist and how Lebron and his wife entered the Oval Office is mysterious.
One of the leading promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a Youtuber who goes by the name Lionel, was invited to the White House to meet Trump. pic.twitter.com/xKSGoEeObW
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) August 24, 2018
Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey says White House aides “seemed startled themselves” when questioned about the photograph.
Am told QAnon gentleman who posed with Trump behind Resolute Desk came into Oval with a larger group. No separate appointment with POTUS. But aides either don’t know or won’t say how he got in with larger group. Several seemed startled themselves tonight when question was posed.
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) August 25, 2018
The Daily Beast also claims White House staff was baffled by the incident:
All four White House officials the Beast did speak with about 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.
The two possibilities are that either someone in the White House set up the meeting to help bolster QAnon or that White House security is so lax that a dubious character like LeBron could easily push his way into a photo-op. Neither possibility is reassuring.