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A Trump official is trying to laugh off the suggestion that she fed information to a QAnon account that could land the owner in court.
“It’s not okay when the Deep State sets you up to commit a crime. I have never been more angry in my life,” complained a QAnon X account “DataRepublican (small r). “I walked in with good faith. Ready to collaborate on Cuba. Got shoved a bunch of hardcopy documents to ‘leak.’ Didn’t check them before accepting. Gave a noncommittal answer. Yep. Markings that would have gotten me in big big trouble.”
The QAnon account owner then complained that markings on the documents “weren’t crossed out.”
“I consulted people and if this were a sanctioned leak - they would have just sent over email. They tried to entrap me.”
While the information in the documents themselves were “nothingburgers” according to the X account, the poster claimed that the informant “tried to get me to commit a crime. I have witnesses. @DataInterpretr will testify to all this.”
“No, I did not fall for your trap,” the QAnon poster added. “… Praise God that he protected me. And my kids do not have to visit their mother in jail.”
A screenshot of the exchange between the QAnon account and the Trump-affiliated ‘leaker’ depicts the government source assuring the QAnon recipient that “all necessary redactions” have been made and that the leaker “wanted to give you the option of ‘breaking’ the story as sort of a gift.”
That same Friday, however, Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers, who President Donald Trump appointed last year, defended the information in the QAnon poster’s thread.
“lol, these are my text messages and documents,” Rogers posted from her own X account. “The ‘markings’ are FOIA redactions required even for voluntary disclosure. To prove this isn't a ‘trap,’ I will happily disclose the documents myself.”
Rogers then submitted a thread of descriptions about a previously unreleased internal Global Engagement Center report suggesting the former State Department office under Joe Biden worked with foreign governments to monitor so-called “gendered disinformation.”
This, said Rogers, suggested the GEC “betrayed their stated mission” after the Deputy Coordinator of GEC told an October 2023 congressional hearing that the State Department entity does not do that "domestically.”
Critics immediately pounced Rogers’ tactic, with heckler, Matt Van Swol posting: “This makes no logical sense.”
“Why would you ask @DataRepublican to ‘leak’ documents that you could just release yourself? This isn’t adding up. What aren’t you telling us?” Van Swol demanded.
“My question is if ya’ll are on the same side why is this on social media and not discussion in private?” another Trump-supporting account posted.
“Do you always trade info of our United States government as "gifts," and do your colleagues?” demanded another critic. “If so, please let us know those other instances and ‘stories’ of ‘leaks’
Yet another critic, Alan Sanders Show podcast host Alan Sanders, called Roger’s machinations an “epic fail,” posting: “You are not very good at this, are you? If this is something you could've easily done yourself, why wouldn't you? It seems you're struggling for some kind of plausible deniability …”
The QAnon account owner remained suspicious and hostile hours later, however.
"To those all who are convincing me that I’m acting on a misunderstanding - She knew my background. She knew the markings that would get me in trouble. She confirmed she’d made all the “redactions” necessary. The leaks given to me were of zero operational value to any effort. It’s one thing to try and get me fired. It’s another to try and get me to commit a crime.