False GOP ad prompts death threats from QAnon

Rep. Tom Malinowski, DN. J., is facing down death threats from Q Anon supporters after the House Republicans’ campaign arm falsely accused him of lobbying to protect sexual predators.

Q Anon supporters began targeting Malinowski, a first-term congressman, on Tuesday, after he led a bipartisan resolution condemning the movement, which spreads a baseless conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump is battling a cabal of Democratic pedophiles.

Q Anon believers seized on an advertisement released last month by the campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, that falsely claimed that Malinowski, then a lobbyist for Human Rights Watch, worked to block a provision in a 2006 crime bill that would have expanded registration requirements for sex offenders.

Death threats and other harassing messages have since poured into Malinowski’s office in Washington. In an interview Wednesday, he called the threats “a direct result” of the advertisement, noting that the calls his office had received cited its central accusation.

“In every city, in every neighborhood, around every corner, sex offenders are living among us,” the narrator of the ad intoned.

“Tom Malinowski chose sex offenders over your family,” the ad said.

A separate document circulated by Republican officials repeated the claim, specifically stating that Malinowski “worked to ensure sex offenders who violated children” would not have to join the registry.