Recently released documents in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News provide another example of network star Tucker Carlson’s on-air rhetoric diverging from his private beliefs. This time the split is over the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents claim that Donald Trump is on the verge of exposing and executing a global cabal of progressive leaders who participate in a child sex-trafficking ring.

In a January 7, 2021, message — the day after a violent Trumpist mob stormed the U.S. Capitol — an unnamed correspondent told Carlson, “This crazy q stuff has consequences.” The person added, “It also takes lots of demagogues for them to believe this stuff. Trump never disavowed this Q shit or Lin Wood or any of the insanity.”

After a redacted response from Carlson, the person passed on a message from “Theo” that “the Q movement is sincerely dangerous” and that “many of the people at the Capitol” during the previous day’s violent insurrection “wore Q t shirts”:

Carlson responded, “Not surprised. All misdirected religious impulses. Secular societies don't work.”

But as other media outlets reported on the substantial QAnon presence among the Capitol rioters, over the following weeks, Carlson used his Fox show to suggest that the group was not dangerous and perhaps did not exist.

Carlson mocked concerns over QAnon posing a “real threat” and described it as a “forbidden idea” on his January 25, 2021, show.

The following month, he pretended that QAnon was so obscure that information about it was impossible to find on the internet. “We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which, in the end, we learned is not even a website. If it's out there, we could not find it,” he claimed on his February 23, 2021 show. 

The Dominion filings previously revealed that Carlson’s on-air rhetoric about election fraud and Trump diverge wildly from his private statements.