State senator apologizes for QAnon car sticker
State Sen. Eric Berthel, under criticism for putting a sticker on his car in apparent support of the controversial conspiracy group QAnon, on Friday issued an apology.
“I’m deeply sorry to anyone who has been offended and to my constituents who have questioned my action,” said Berthel, who district includes also Bethlehem, Bridgewater, Middlebury, Oxford, Roxbury, Seymour, Southbury, Washington and Woodbury.
Berthel’s apology was issued in an opinion piece sent to Hearst Connecticut Media that was posted Friday morning. He said he finds the group’s extreme views “abhorrent.”
Berthel first was criticized early last week on social media when someone saw the sticker. He said he doesn’t adhere to QAnon’s more-extreme conspiracy theories, but supported its belief in government accountability.
This week, state Rep. Arthur O’Neill, R-Southbury, the longest-serving Republican in the state House of Representatives, became the first prominent GOP figure to criticize Berthel, charging that Berthel isn’t fit to hold office, even as state Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano of North Haven defended Berthel.
Berthel said Friday that he understood the meaning of QAnon sticker on his car — representing the phrase “Where We Go One, We Go All” — to be a phrase attacking corruption in politics.
“My failure to look into the movement more deeply, which I take full responsibility for, led me to overlook the extreme views of the movement which I don’t subscribe to and find abhorrent,” Berthel wrote. “It was my lack of fully understanding this movement that led me to put these words on my car for which I deeply regret. I was wrong. I was wrong to assume that a sticker would not evoke the extreme elements of the movement which I vehemently disagree with and which I did not fully understand at the time. “
The core of QAnon beliefs erroneously charges that Devil-worshiping pedophiles operate a worldwide sextrafficking ring and are in battle with President Donald Trump.
Berthel said he removed the sticker “weeks ago,” and that the issue has become a distraction in his re-election campaign.
In a separate statement on Friday, Berthel said O’Neill’s criticism, on the eve of the veteran House member’s retirement, was disappointing from someone he thought was a friend.
“I am saddened to see Art O’Neill’s deeply personal and false attack by someone so many of us called a friend and once saw as a respected voice,” Berthel said, adding that “local” political issues might have had something to do with O’Neill’s criticism.
“It is disappointing to see a lawmaker who I have worked closely with to do much good for our state leave office on such a bitter and sour note,” Berthel said.
O’Neill said in an interview Friday night that he was disappointed that he was the first Republican to criticize Berthel.