State senator who supported QAnon rebuked by prominent Republican
Sen Eric Berthel, a state senator whose car bumper sticker indicated support for the controversial QAnon group, received a rebuke Wednesday from a prominent fellow Republican who said he “is unfit to hold office.”
The statement by State Rep. Arthur O’Neill, RSouthbury, is believed to be the first public criticism of Berthel, a Watertown Republican, over the bumper sticker and Berthel’s defense of it.
O’Neill, a lawyer who has been in the House since
1989, making him the senior GOP member of the state House of Representatives, said the senator’s affiliation with QAnon, first reported last week, is unacceptable.
“Berthel’s support of QAnon proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Eric Berthel lacks the character, common sense, and common decency to hold the office of state senator,” said O’Neill, a longtime member of the legislative Judiciary Committee who was cochairman of the 2004 House panel that led to the historic resignation of Gov. John G. Rowland.
“It is with much sadness and deep disappointment that I find myself compelled to announce that Eric Berthel is unfit to hold the office of State Senator,” O’Neill, who is retiring from office, said in a written statement.
“His display of a QAnon decal, on his personal vehicle, alongside his state Senate marker plate, the U.S. flag, and the Republican elephant emblem, made much worse by his absurd excuse for displaying the sticker, demonstrate his support of QAnon,” O’Neill wrote. “That he now claims his support is somewhat ‘limited’ is an insult to the intelligence of the voters.”
Berthel declined a request for comment on Wednesday, but Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, RNorth Haven, issued a statement defending Berthel, who served one term in the House before his election to the Senate in
2017.
“I have respect for Representative O'Neill, who spent many years in the building and, like me, is retiring this year,” Fasano said. “However, the statements in his press release attempting to smear Sen. Berthel are misplaced. As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows, and sometimes feelings can get in way of good judgment.”
O’Neill stressed that the FBI has described QAnon as a potential domestic terrorist threat, with theories that include that Democrats and government officials are engaged in trafficking children for sex.
Last week Berthel, ranking Republican member of the legislative Education Committee, said he did not back QAnon’s conspiracy beliefs, but does support the group’s desire for government accountability.
Fasano called Berthel an “upstanding lawmaker who has always fought for equality, fairness and opportunity for everyone” and who has voted in favor of some of the nation’s strongest laws against hate crimes. “He is someone who values fairness, justice, and equality in everything he does,” Fasano said.