QAnon followers were taken aback this week when acquitted gunman Kyle Rittenhouse slammed extremist lawyer and longtime QAnon acolyte Lin Wood as “insane.”
As Rittenhouse and Wood faced off against each other, QAnon backers were speaking out in support of the lawyer — or the gunman — indicating a possible fracture in the far-right conspiracy movement.
Wood, who is known for pushing Donald Trump’s election lies as a member of the former president’s legal team, was one of Rittenhouse’s first attorneys after the teen was arrested last year for fatally shooting two unarmed men and wounding a third with at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rittenhouse said in an interview on the cable channel NewsNation on Tuesday that he and his mother fired Wood last December because “he was going on with all this QAnon and election fraud stuff, and just stuff we don’t agree with.”
He added: “He’s insane. ... He thinks he’s God and he just says all these weird things.”
Rittenhouse has also accused Wood of mishandling money the attorney raised to bail him out.
Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson on Fox News that Wood raised $2 million for bail, but then advised the teen to stay in jail where he would be “safer” for a total of 87 days. Wood also “put me on media interviews, which I should never have done,” Rittenhouse complained to Carlson.
He added: “I was being used for a cause.”
Now Rittenhouse wants to use the money raised for him to pay off his current attorneys.
Wood, who has discounted Rittenhouse’s complaints, told NewsNation he can’t simply hand over the money to Rittenhouse because it was raised as part of the charity he established, the FightBack Foundation, and he must comply with tax law.
The lawyer said he is “open” to using funds to help pay Rittenhouse’s defense bills. But Wood also claimed that his organization spent $2.7 million on Rittenhouse’s defense before the teen signed on with new attorneys.
QAnon influencer John Sabal, better known as QAnon John, posted a message on Wednesday to his more than 70,000 Telegram subscribers, writing: “Not too smart to shit where you sleep, Kyle,” Insider reported.
QAnon influencer Ron Watkins’ followers accused Rittenhouse of being part of a “psyop” to divide QAnon followers.
But Wood was also garnering some negative comments. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has peddled QAnon conspiracy theories, blasted Wood earlier this week as a “horrible person” after what Rittenhouse had to say about him.
Wood has reached out on Twitter to QAnon acolyte and Trump’s onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn, asking for his help and support.
The lawyer is convinced there’s a growing “F-Lin” plot, he wrote on Telegram.