Supporters of President Donald Trump who recently harassed Democratic candidate Joe Biden‘s campaign bus in Texas were armed and organized their operation in a private QAnon Facebook page, according to a new report.
The report, which was published by the fact-checking site, Snopes, states that the convoy of trucks that were seen on video surrounding a Biden-Kamala Harris bus on Texas’ Interstate 35, organized the event in a private Facebook page called the Alamo City Trump Train. The report also notes that messages between the group’s members suggested that they were armed with guns.
According to the report, on October 30, one group member posted “#OperationBlockTheBus RN,” with “RN” referring to “right now.”
The post “was endorsed with 142 reactions, including likes, laughing emojis, or love hearts. “I LOVE IT!!!!,” said one commenter. “This is awesome,” said another. Other comments included: “Great job!,” “GOOD!,” “Love it,” “This is fucking hilarious,” and “Awesome.”,” Snopes wrote in its report.
In the report, Snopes notes that in its study of the private Facebook group, it found a number of posts and comments referring to the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose followers believe that several notable members of the Democratic Party are part of a satanic cult involved with child sex trafficking.
In one post found in the group, one member shared a screenshot they believed to be from “Q” and others commented the conspiracy theory’s slogan, ” “WWG1WGA,” or “Where We Go One We Go All.”
According to Snopes, QAnon logos, signage and flags were also found throughout the Facebook page.
Additionally, Snopes also notes that on October 31, one day after the incident, a group member published a post questioning news articles that suggested those involved in the operation were armed, which was met by another group member responding with, “Yep we are armed and dangerous.”
“It’s Texas. Everyone is carrying!” another member commented, according to Snopes.
“Cause it’s Texas and we don’t f*** around, we are always armed!!!” another comment read, Snopes reported.
The incident Snopes is reporting on occurred on October 30, when several Trump supporters were seen on video surrounding the Biden-Harris campaign bus. The incident prompted Biden’s campaign to cancel a joint event in Pflugerville with the Austin Young Democrats and Texas House Representative Sheryl Cole due to security reasons, and the FBI announced that they were opening an investigation into the incident.
A video of the incident was shared by Trump on Twitter with a caption that read, “I LOVE TEXAS!”
In response to the FBI investigation, Trump posted another tweet that read, “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong. Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”
According to CBS News, a statement from the Biden campaign said that, “rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas [yesterday] instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way.”
Newsweek reached out to Biden and Trump’s campaigns for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
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